Water Pollution

Our study determined how detrimental pet activity is on the environment, more specifically the water systems at Bulls Creek, Wild Basin, and McKinney Falls. My hypothesis was the if there is human and pet activity near water ways, there will be an increase in algae boom and chlorophyll a concentration because bacteria body material, and feces of the dog affects the water’s health. Our results did not agree with our hypothesis because Chlorophyll a concentration was higher at McKinney Falls, where there was the most pet activity, and lower at Bulls Creek, even though pets were allowed also. Additionally, the Wild Basin, where there were no pets allowed, had samples with an unexpectedly high chlorophyll a concentration compared to the samples from Bulls Creek. Other factors including canopy cover, and urban runoff could have also altered water quality.

Blepharisma Unaffected by Glyphosate; Killed by RoundUp INTRODUCTION Blepharisma (Blepharisma japonicum) is a protist found in fresh and saltwater. Runoff is a common problem in lake water, particularly RoundUp. The active ingredient in RoundUp is glyphosate. Glyphosate works by blocking the synthesis of proteins in certain plants, subsequently killing them (National Pesticide Prevention Center, 2010). Because of this finding, it was assumed that glyphosate would have a similar effect on microbes.

When was the last time you swam in the Great Lakes? Could you say that it was clean, could you say that the organisms were all healthy and doing great? Well, unfortunately, there are many things harming our Great Lakes, like chemicals, pollution, and invasive species.

Lake Erie is thriving biologically but not in the way one might think. It’s poisoned with toxic algal blooms that grow in the phosphorus-concentrated waters millions of Canadians and Americas alike depend on for drinking water. Unfortunately, this is also not the first time this has happened to the Great, not-so-great Lake.

Contaminated sediments are a significant problem in the Great Lakes basin. To reduced the discharge of toxic and persistent chemicals to the Great Lakes we must concentrations of contaminants in the bottom of rivers and harbors and have to raised considerable concern about potential risks to aquatic organisms, wildlife, and

The Great Lakes, though fairly clean, are contaminated with some deadly chemicals that have slipped by human filtration into the lakes. These emerging chemicals have been determined to pose some health risk to humans and surrounding ecosystems and are used by society, but are unregulated or inadequately regulated retardants (Miller-Branovacki, Lindsay, "Water Resources and Urban Waste Water (Week #8)"). More specifically an emerging contaminant is one which is not historically widely distributed, nor a concern, however are now persistent and bioaccumulative making them a concern for the environment. The three major categories for emerging contaminants are; endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs), Pharmaceutical and personal care

Just under ten years ago, the Kalamazoo River was struck with a detrimental oil spill. Not only did the oil spill pose a great economic burden, but it also caused various effects on the ecosystem and the public health of Kalamazoo. During the spill, many local citizens reported symptoms of sickness caused by exposure to toxic chemicals that are found within oil 1. Other than the ways that individuals were affected by the initial spill, one can presume that the ecological stress caused by this event may pose a long-term impact on the health of the community. Because all bodies of water in an area are connected by a watershed, if one piece within these complex system is damaged, then the other parts will most likely undergo stress as well. The ecological impact on the watershed can transfer to issues that can affect an area’s public health, as shown by the illness caused by the oil spill

To continue, erosion is also a prominent cause that brings contaminants into watercourses[ix]. Other important toxins that can end up in the water cycle and affect water quality, plants and animal[x] are metal sources found in fertilizers, animal feed and manure, such as the nutrients of copper, zinc, manganese and iron.[xi] Finally, high concentration of nutrient waste, such as domestic sewage effluents, can cause cyanobacteria to expand[xii]. Once water contaminants reach a lake in large concentration, cyanobacteria can suddenly develop and “result in safe water bodies becoming a toxic soup[xiii]”.

Stern, M., Parker, K., & Wilking, S. (2016, December 8). Toxic Lake: The Untold Story of Lake Okeechobee. Retrieved from

One of the world’s oldest rivers and also one of America’s most polluted, the Susquehanna River is facing an escalating environmental threat. The 464 mile long river runs through four states, eventually into the Chesapeake Bay and then the Atlantic Ocean and provides drinking water for over 6 million people. Pennsylvania contains much of the country’s most fertile farm lands and holds 21,000 of the 27,000 square miles of the river’s watershed area. The agriculture industry is the largest contributor to the pollution issue that has been steadily on the rise for the past decade. A major concern for environmental agencies is the aquatic life that is being affected by the toxins in the river. As scientists collect increasing amounts of data

Water pollution from combined sewer overflow (CSO) into rivers and other waterways has become an increasing problem in the United States. An estimated 850 billion gallons of untreated storm and sewage water are released into our waterways each year. Given that our grey water infrastructures are unable to handle the volume of water entering their systems, a sustainable, eco-friendly solution is needed. A constructed wetland is a type of green infrastructure that can help to solve this problem of CSO. The cost of constructing this green infrastructure is less than that of traditional grey infrastructure. Advantages of the constructed wetland goes beyond improved water quality, to include lower operational costs, an added recreational area, increased habitat which could lead to greater diversity of wildlife. Educating local officials and community members about the benefits and sustainability of the green infrastructure will be vital in initiating the process of creating a wetland.

Climate change, the watershed characteristics, internal loading, general hydrology, development within the lakes watershed, and even the lakes biological ecosystem can have a major effect on the water quality. When the water is undesirable state the cyanobacteria mentioned above will thrive in this environment (Lubnow, 2014). They create a scum on the water surface as they bloom which can have an odor associated with it, this is due to the compounds of geosmin and 2-methlisoborneol being produced (Lubnow, 2014). These compounds are not ones that the aquatic life within the lake consume therefore they build up as time goes on and will produce cyanotoxins that are incredibly harmful to human and animal life (Lubnow, 2014). Since this lake is used for recreational uses such as swimming, boating, and fishing this cyanobacterium and the cyanotoxins they produce pose a huge threat to those residences on the

Due to man’s pollution of environments all of the world, today’s rivers serve as chemical fingerprints, so to speak, for their respective ecosystems. They carry chemical cocktails, and a new study recently analyzed the nuanced differences between substances throughout a watershed to figure out more about the biological processes happening both in the water and on land. This was a Mississippi River watershed comprised of all the headwaters of the Upper Mississippi.

Water is probably the most important resource we as people have. Humans can survive without food for several weeks, but without water we would die in less than a week. On a slightly less dramatic note, millions of liters of water are needed every day worldwide for washing, irrigating crops, and cooling industrial processes, not to mention leisure industries such as swimming pools and water-sports centers. Despite our dependence on water, we use it as a dumping ground for all sorts of waste, and do very little to protect the water supplies we have.

Water contamination is the defilement of characteristic water bodies by compound, physical, radioactive or pathogenic microbial substances. Unfriendly adjustment of water quality in no time delivers vast scale ailment and deaths, resulting of more than 50 million deaths for every year worldwide. Widespread results of water contamination upon environments incorporate species mortality, biodiversity decrease and loss of biological system administrations. Some consider that, the most dangerous of water pollutants are organisms that impel illness, since their sources may be interpreted as characteristic, however a dominance of these occasions result from human intercession in nature 's turf or human overpopulation phenomena. This