The Crying Indian

Take Action!

Water is an essential component of life.

Water is all around us, in the air and in the ground. It is in milk, vegetables, fruit, meat, leaves, trunks, roots, and branches of a tree; it is even in stones.
We need water to grow and stay alive. In fact, we could only live for a few days without drinking water. We also need water to grow plants and care for animals, cook our food, bathe and brush our teeth, flush the toilet, and wash our clothes.
So, it is only right that we try to do everything that we can to protect our water resources.

And the Delaware River Gap (watershed) is very important to the Tri-State area serving Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New Jersey.
It gives homes to many species of animals and supplies drinking water for many towns. The Delaware has a strong history of use and is still to this day used for recreational purposes such as camping and fishing.

A Watershed by definition refers to parting of water, the actual ridge dividing drainages. It encompasses the entire land surface that collects and drains water down to a single exit point.
Watershed can be as large as the Mississippi basin, which is the fourth-largest in the world, which drains 41 percent of the lower 48 U.S. states in the Gulf of Mexico. Or it can be as small as all the land in your neighborhood that flows from your yard, roof, driveway, and streets to the storm drain and out to your local creek, lake, and eventually the ocean.
Watersheds are very useful because they offer protection and filtration which are essential to provide safe water for people to drink.
So, it is very important to understand that there are many kinds of chemicals used in our society that posses a threat to water resources.
But there are many watershed issues that provide us with many avenues to become involved. Some solutions are small and some are big. But whatever it is there is enough for everyone to take action. Below is listed a few ways everyone can help eliminate water pollution.

How to Help protect your Watershed
Household Activities
Use low-flow appliances and fixtures
Create a storm water harvesting rain garden
Focus on the use of drought tolerant native plants
Install a rainwater or gray water system for all irrigation
Community Actions
Form a community watershed group
Implement habitat restoration projects
Create watershed literacy curriculum for your local schools
Political Actions
Implement sustainable water policies
Regulate water pollution
Green Design
Employ drought resistant landscaping
Redesign urban spaces for water conservation
Reuse and Recycle water
Use rainwater as a resource
Wastewater Treatment Plants
The partial or complete closure of water cycles is an essential part of sustainable water-resource management. One option is to increase the re-use of effluents for various purposes, especially in industrial and agro/food production

References sited:
Spellman, Frank & Joanna Drninan “The Drinking Water Handbook”
Technomic Publishig Company. Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 2000.

Photos

So here are some of the pictures I took of the Schuykill River which is apart of the Delaware River. Check out more in my picture slideshow on the side!

Me & a nice Philly skyline over the Schuykill River

Adverse Effects

What are the effects of water pollution?
The effects of water pollution can vary. Including poisonous drinking water, poisonous food animals (due to these organisms having bioaccumulated toxins from the environment over their life spans), unbalanced river and lake ecosystems that can no longer support full biological diversity, deforestation from acid rain, and many other effects. These effects are, of course, specific to the various contaminants.

To the natural environment
Certain contaminants emission in the environment can increase the occurrence of resistant bacteria in the environment. This can result also in unbalanced ecosystems.

To the aquatic environment
Emerging contaminants escape elimination in WWTP and enter the aquatic environment via sewage effluents.
“The persistent long term chronic exposure of aquatic organism to low-dose PPCP concentrations and other contaminants, may lead to cumulative stress and toxicity which could be a catalyst for subtle endpoint ecological changes.” (J.B. Ellis)
Plant productivity and water depth become reduced, and aquatic organisms and their environments become suffocated.
There is also evidence that concentrations in fish tissue has declined over the years and is still decreasing.
And fish consumption advisories are issued by each state to inform the public when locally-caught fish are not safe to be eaten due to known levels of contamination.

To animal (human) health
Even thought there are low percentages of contaminants found in the water, many contaminants have not shown adverse side effects to human health except a few. There are still on going studies to determine the exact effect of these contaminants in drinking water to human health. But there are a few findings;

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are toxic compounds shown to cause cancer in animals and serious noncancer health effects to the immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems. Studies provide supportive evidence for potential carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic effects in humans as well.

PCBs persist in the environment for long periods of time because they bond strongly to soil and sediments and bioaccumulate in fish and wildlife.
PCBs remain the primary cancer risk driver, followed by dioxin and dioxin-like chemicals. Mercury levels in striped bass are moderately elevated and contribute to non-cancer health risks.

References sited:
J.B. Ellis. “Pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in urban receiving waters”
K. Kümmerer. “Resistance in the Environment” The Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. Vol. 54 No. 2

The System (How it works)

Reports by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) say that chemicals remain in public drinking water after treatment. Low levels of manufactured chemicals remain in public water supplies even after they have been treated in community water facilities.

Water pollution is detected in laboratories, where small samples of water are analyzed for different contaminants. Living organisms such as fish can also be used for the detection of water
pollution. Changes in their behavior or growth show that the water they live in is polluted. Specific properties of these organisms can give information on the sort of pollution in their environment. Laboratories can also use computer models to determine what dangers there can be in certain waters. They import the data they own on the water into the computer, and the computer then determines if the water has any impurities.

But then you might ask if water is tested, then how are there still contaminants in the drinking water? - And the answer is emerging contaminants
What are “emerging” contaminants or new “unregulated” contaminants?
“Emerging contaminants" can be broadly defined as any synthetic or naturally occurring chemical or any microorganism that is not commonly monitored in the environment but has the potential to enter the environment and cause known or suspected adverse ecological and(or) human health effects. In some cases, release of emerging chemical or microbial contaminants to the environment has likely occurred for a long time, but may not have been recognized until new detection methods were developed. In other cases, synthesis of new chemicals or changes in use and disposal of existing chemicals can create new sources of emerging contaminants. (USGS)



One of the main sources of emerging contaminants is untreated urban wastewater and (WWTP) waste water treatment plants effluents

Wastewater facility in Philadelphia

For an example of how chemicals can go through the treatment plants and still end up in drinking water we will look at (PPCP) Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products.
“PPCPs discharged into STW (sewage treatment plants) will undergo biological (aerobic and anaerobic biodegradation by micro-organisms) and chemical degradation (hydrolysis or photolysis). Hence, within STWs certain PPCPs (e.g. aspirin) will undergo complete mineralization into water and carbon dioxide. Some lipophilic substances due to their physio-chemical properties (e.g. penicillin) will bind to sewage sludge. Hydrophilic PPCPs including polar metabolites (e.g. clofibric acid) will remain in the aqueous phase and be present in STW effluent (Petrovic)”
So, this means that the chemical structure of each contaminant is important because it could allow some of them to go through the treatment plant process and pass through the STW and still end up in drinking water.

Definitions
Mineralization - is the process where a substance is converted from an organic substance to an inorganic substance,
Hydrophilic - means "waterloving" refers to a physical property of a molecule that can transiently bond with water through hydrogen bonding

References sited:
Mira Petrovic. “Analysis and removal of emerging contaminants in wastewater and drinking water” Trends in Analytical Chemistry. Volume 22. No. 10 2003.

Mouth-Watering

Have you ever wondered what’s in your local tap water system, have you ever wondered if you were drinking more than just water, well I have and did some research and this is what I found.

In Philadelphia Drinking water there has been numerical accounts of contaminants found in the water. And by definition a Contaminant –is any physical, chemical, biological, or radiological substance or matter that has an adverse effect on air, water, or soil. Defined by the http://www.epa.gov/

Contaminants now commonly found in drinking water include tiny traces of pesticides, herbicides, flame retardants, DEET, mosquito repellant, aircraft de-icers, mercury, arsenic, lead, and esters, ketones and other chemicals found in personal care products.
Here are just a few contaminants found in the Philadelphia Drinking water, listed with the uses and chemical structure.

Ammonia - is a compound with the formula NH3 contributes significantly to the nutritional

needs of terrestrial organism

used as serving to precursor to foodstuff and fertilizers

Atrazine - an organic herbicide banned in the European Union

used in the US which has been implicated in the decline of fish stocks and in changes in animal behavior

Diazinon - is a mobile and moderately persistent man-made pesticide in the environment
used as a non-systemic organophosphate insecticide formerly used to control cockroaches, silverfish, ants, and fleas in residential, non-food buildings

Trichloroethylene - is a chlorinated hydrocarbon

used as an industrial solvent

When dealing with contaminants it is important to know the uses and chemical structures. Each contaminant has different chemical structures which effects how they are treated in waste water treatment plants.

In the News II Traces of Drugs Found in Drinking Water

Traces of Drugs Found in Drinking Water
Researchers Examine Human Health Risks Posed by Prescription Drug-Contaminated Water
Oct. 15, 2008

You cannot taste them. You cannot see them. But scientists say they are there: traces of prescription drugs in the water that comes from many people's faucets

"Everything from antidepressants to heart medication to birth control pills to caffeine" has been found in certain drinking water, said Dr. Brian Buckley, environmental scientist at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

In his lab in New Brunswick alone, Buckley has found acne medication, barbiturates, caffeine and birth control medication in the water system.
While most of the medicines we take are absorbed by our bodies, he said, traces do escape via human waste and are flushed into our treatment plants, winding up in the water supply.
While the long-term health risks are unclear, there is evidence that medicines in the water, as well as hormones and chemicals, have negatively affected frogs and fish.
"The concern is we don't know what these chemicals do in the body over a lifetime of exposure," Buckley said.

Utility companies say that medicines can be found in the drinking water, but at levels so low that there is little danger. They say the only reason people even know about it now is because the technology has been developed to detect minute traces.
"One could safely consume 50,000 glasses of water a day without any adverse health effects," said Alan Roberson, director of security and regulatory affairs at the Denver-based American Water Works Association, which advocates for improved water quality and supply.
Even though the traces are minimal, Buckley warns that it is possible there may be potential hazards associated with long-term exposure to small compounds over one's lifetime.
"It is probably better to be safe than sorry," Buckley said. "And, in addition, there may be drug-drug interaction, even though the concentrations are very low."
While the government does not require water treatment plants to test for pharmaceuticals, there was enough concern to justify Congressional hearings in September to discuss emerging contaminants in U.S. waters.
"I am very concerned," said Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y. "We don't know for sure if it's having an effect on human beings and that's what we're trying to find out."

Reference: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=6040196&page=1