Drinking Water Dilemma

Essay by babygirl2929College, UndergraduateA+, March 2002

download word file, 3 pages 3.5 1 reviews

A total of 230 million gallons of water is consumed each day in the United States. Before this water can be drunk, it endures many unfavorable influences. The liquid that spews from our kitchen tap has been treated at a sewage treatment plant, but these plants are not designed to remove the inorganic toxins that plague this country's water system. In sddition to the deficiencies of treatment facilities, our water supply is most severly threatened by the government's lack of desire to develop and enforce the appropiate laws to control the decline in drinking water quallity.

Before water reaches a sewage treatment plant, it has picked up a large number of containments. These pollutants incluse heavy metal, herbicides, pesticides, fertilizers, degreasers, lead, and many degradable and nondegradable manufacturing wastes. Upon arriving at a treatment plant, our water doesn't have much of a chance of being relieved of these containments.

According to Melinda Cassen, an Enviromental Defense Fund (EDF) staff attorney, "These plants are designed to remove organic wastes--primarily household wastes from the kitchen and bathroom". Because sewage treatment plants aren't properly equipped to remove sone containments, many of the inorganic toxins that define our water remain as the water travels to our home. As the contaminated water enters our bodies, many water born illnesses surface.

Giardiasis is one example of an illness derived from drinking contaminated water. Giardiasis, often called beaver fever, gets its name from Gardia lamblia(a parasite carried by beavers). Symptoms accompanying beaver fever include severe diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, bloating, dehydration and weight loss. Giardiasis affectes people all over the United States and is not the only adverse condition caused by drinking water containments. Lead is another pollutant which is found in drinking water all over the country. Symptoms casued from high levels of lead in the...