Water Pollution

Rainfall, snowmelt and irrigation cleanse the surface of the Earth. Any pollutants that are on the ground will eventually come in contact with water. So what? The water is just cleaning the streets and everything it comes in contact with, right? Wrong, the water picks up everything that is in it's path.

This can range from pieces of food to motor oil to fertilizer or any pollutants that might lie on the millions of roads and expressways of the US. Now the polluted water makes its down fall into the ground water, which intern ends up in nearby streams, rivers, and lakes. This means that any pollutant left on the ground will eventually end up as contamination of the water supply. We need this water to drink and we use the rivers and lakes as recreation. Water runoff presents a major problem.Polluted water runoff is hard to calculate, but some attribute as high as 80% to runoff.

Most people think that only the big companies are to blame for the poor quality of water, but that isn't so. The large companies are regulated by the Clean Water Act. There is no way to control the amount of pollution that is taken by water runoff. Police can not find everyone that has spread their old motor oil on their driveway to keep the dust down or keep track of how often people fertilize their lawn. This is much more difficult to detect and prevent. This comes down to each persons own values and environmental values. Each individual is responsable for their actions and there is no way to police that. The average person doesn't cause any large quantities of water pollution, it comes from an unlikely source.