Figure 2. Planet Earth (NASA 1999).
Water treatment is becoming an increasingly important issue on the planet in order to meet the needs of a growing population. Over irrigation, inefficient use in industry, use of old domestic appliances and many other inappropriate uses of water result in huge wastes of water and add many hazardous materials to the water supply.
Our representatives in congress need to be reminded of the importance of clean water supplies and should be encouraged to the enforce and support clean water policies, such as The Clean Water Act, and to create programs and systems that clean and purify polluted water supplies. Issues such as contamination of water supplies with mercury and arsenic need to be taken more seriously, addressed and acted on. Stricter regulations for industries and other major water polluters need to be created and properly enforced. Programs that create water purification systems should be better supported, in order to implement and set up more water purification systems.
Water is an essential life source. Water is being polluted, dumped in, and unprotected, and this means that life is being polluted, dumped in and unprotected. We, as citizens, need exercise our right to have a say in the decisions that are affecting the water. Water directly affects all people, ecosystems, and life on earth. By voicing our opinions, staying informed and educated, change can be created toward greater protection of water.
Current Legislation Information on Water Resources
The Bush Administration and the EPA may cut water protections from the Clean Water Act, thus allowing water polluters to further pollute the water supplies of America. The Clean Water Act needs improvement to better protect the waterways and to better enforce the laws. Take simple actions to protect water and learn more by clicking on the following links.
|
Support The Clean Water Act: Take a simple action toward cleaner water. Contact the Vermont Legislature or the EPA concerning prevention of the Clean Water Act deregulation or any other legislation of your concern by clicking on the following links: Water Quality Information Find water quality information by visiting the Water Quality Information Center by clicking on the following link: U.S. Department of Agriculture 2003 |
The Bush Administration's policy on arsenic in drinking water is not protecting us. The Bush Administration allows harmful amounts of the toxic metal Arsenic in America's drinking water supplies. Inform yourself about arsenic in drinking water and view the administration's policy by clicking on the following links: Click on the following link: U.S. State PIRGs 2003 U. S. Environmental Protection Agency 2003 The "No Net Loss" Policy did not work. Find out about the failed "No Net Loss" policy for wetlands and waterways by clicking on the following link: Sierra Club 2003 |
The Bush Administration's Deregulations of The Clean Water Act:
The Bush Administration has dropped many water protections from the Clean Water Act. The Administration has taken steps that will threaten and further pollute America's waterways, as well as take federal protections away from lakes, rivers, wetlands, and other waterways that have protection currently. The Administration has also lightened requirements for raw sewage wastewater treatment.
On March 10, 2003 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exempted the oil and gas industry from the EPA's phase II storm water pollution rule, a regulation that directed at decreasing polluted runoff into the waterways.
The Bush Administration and the EPA may cut water protections from the Clean Water Act, thus allowing water polluters to further pollute the water supplies of America. The Clean Water Act needs improvement to better protect the waterways and to better enforce the laws.
The Clean Water Act needs improvements that the Bush Administration is not addressing. View six proposed principles for an improved Clean Water Act, and to take a simple action toward cleaner water by contacting the EPA and supporting the improvement of the Clean Water Act by clicking on the following link:
Find out in more detail about Clean Water Act protections that are being deregulated by the Bush Administration by clicking on the following link:
|
Send a Letter in Support of The Clean Water Act: Send a letter to the legislature for the support of protection of the |
Send a Letter concerning prevention of mercury contaimination in water: Send a letter to the legislature to address and support raising controls |
When sending letters, add your name and return address as well as the name and address of the person you choose to write to (see below). When the needed information is added, print out the letter and send it your congressmen or representative.
Send it to a representative on: The Vermont Legislature
Send it to a representative on: The U.S. House of Representatives
You may want to send a letter to one of the following people or organizations:
|
Bernard Sanders |
Jim Jeffords |
Christine Todd Whitman |
Senator Patrick Leahy |
The following water contaminants, according to Bill Mollison in The Permaculture Manual, pose problems to water quality and affect drinking water most commonly:
Turbidity (fine particles and silt suspended in water)
Bacterial or Organic Pollution: such as sewage, decay products (such as E-coli), disease organisms, viral or protozoan pathogens, and parasitic worm eggs.
Metallic Pollution: including mercury, lead, chromium, aluminum, selenium, chromium, and cadmium.
Biocides: such as dieldrin, aldrin, dioxin, PCB, organophosphates, and halogenated hydrocarbons.
Excessive Fertilizer: including sodium and potassium salts, phosphates, and nitrogenous compounds.
Acids/ acid forming compounds: If the PH level is lower than 5.5, there is an increase in the amount of metallic pollution in the water. This occurs because aluminum and other metals will go into solution form when exposed to an acid with a PH of 5.5 or lower. Metals including mercury, lead, cadmium, selenium, copper, nickel, and lead can dissolve out of rocks, soil, drinking tanks, tea urns, hot water tanks or other such materials which contain these metals when acidic water comes into contact them. (Mollison, 1998)
Information on toxic wastes releases
Table 1.
U.S. Toxic Release Table (Brown 2001).|
Year and Nation |
Pollutant released |
|
1999: The United States of America |
Toxic chemicals |
|
Source of pollutant |
Pollutants released |
|
Electrical Generating Facilities |
Toxic chemicals and metals including arsenic, copper,and zinc |
|
Metal Mining |
Toxic chemicals and metals including copper, zinc, and arsenic |
|
Primary Metals Industry |
Toxic chemicals and metals including steel, copper, aluminum, zinc, and arsenic |
|
Chemical manufacturing |
Toxic chemicals |
|
Paper manufacturing |
Toxic chemicals |
|
Coal burning power plants |
Mercury |
Mercury
Mercury is a poison released by mines, metal processed and acid rain from industrial sites and coal burning power plants. Health problems associated with mercury are bone deformity, insanity, coordination problems, central nervous system malfunction, sanity problems, and liver damage. (Mollison, 1998).
Mercury in New England: Cheak out the Mercury update from January 2003 by clicking on the following link: New England EPA 2003.
For information on pollution prevention of mercury into wastewaters click on the following link: TNRCC, 2003.
Table 2.
Freshwater Location Table.
Approximately 3% of all water on earth is freshwater.
|
STORAGE |
% OF FRESHWATER |
|
Ice and Glaciers |
75.0 |
|
Groundwater more than 800 m deep |
13.5 |
|
Groundwater less than 800 m deep
|
11.0 |
|
Lakes |
0.3 |
|
Soils |
0.06 |
|
Atmosphere (in circulation at any one time) |
0.035
|
Rivers
|
0.03
|
*Permafrost is not included in this table, but makes up a large amount of storage.
Sustainable Methods of Wastewater Treatment
It is important to treat water using biological treatments because of the danger associated with current methods of treatment, such as chlorine. Chlorine (CL) releases the carcinogenic gas chloroform. Chlorine is dangerous to inhale and was used as a war gas. Currently it is used in order to "sterilize" water. Chlorine is a trace element and is to only be used in minute amounts. Chlorine is used by plants and is normally available as a salt. Chlorine bio-accumulates to concentrate in crops. (For instance, 350 ppm in soil becomes 1000 ppm in crops.) (Mollison, 1998)
There are alternatives to using clorine to treat wastewater. Ozone treament of waste water is safer, yet more expensive and could potentailly be let out as air pollution. Ultra violet radiation is another alternitive, which is safe, and effective, yet expensive. Biological treatments are safe, effective, and unexpensive.
There are numerous ways to set up simple water treatment systems, such as rainwater catchment systems, as well as various methods of creating gray water treatment methods. Sustainable methods of cleaning, purifying, and treating wastewater have been used and have always been here on earth, such as plants, wetlands, sand, and clay. Rainwater catchment and gray water treatment systems can easily be set up and used with limited material supplies.
There are bioremediation and phytoremediation techniques that can effectively filter water. Limestone added to water can neutralize the acid from acid rain. Sunflowers have the ability to take radioactive materials out of water. In several techniques it is possible to have an end product of water that is purified and completely safe to drink.
A "living machine" is the term used to describe a particular wastewater treatment system that removes contaminates from water with the use of plant root systems. The wastewater, previously treated using a traditional wastewater treatment, travels through tanks containing plant roots. In the roots of the plants live billions of microorganisms, which extract phosphorus, nitrogen, and other containments from the water. Growth of plants in water is called hydroponics, and living machines make great use of hydroponics as well as provide a sustainable, energy efficient method of wastewater treatment.
Find more information on living machines from the following web sites:
Learn about the South Burlington Living Macine:(Living Machines,Inc 2003)
Iasis Living Systems: (In Context 2001
Wastewater Treatment
Figure 5."Miniature ferrocement constructed wetland" (OasisDesign,2002)
Phytoremediation: Using plant growth to detoxify dangerous contaminants from soil and water systems.
Phytoremediation includes all biological, chemical, and physical plant processes that naturally help remove and decontaminate toxic pollutants from soil and water. Plants and the process of phytoremediation remove metal contaminants from the soil or water in three different ways: Phytoextraction, rhizofiltration, and phytostabilization.
Rhizofiltration is the absorption or precipitation into the plant roots or absorption into the roots of contaminants from the base of the plants, around the root systems. Rhizofiltration is mainly used to remove contaminants from ground water. The main method in using rhizofiltration is by suspending plants above ground water so they can grow upright with the roots extending into the water. Plants can remove up to sixty percent of their dry weight as toxic metals (EPA. 1998).
As the roots uptake water they also uptake pollutants and after the roots are saturated with contaminants they are harvested. Rhizofiltration has removed radionuclides at a DOE site in a Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine (EPA. 1998).
Phytoextraction or phytoaccumulation is the term used, as there is an uptake of metal that is contaminated at the site, by plant roots and up into higher parts of the plants. Most plants that accumulate metal well are slow growing or weedy plants with a low amount of biomass. Plants referred to as hypoaccumulators are plant species that take in greater amounts of metals from ground water than most plants do. Currently there are 400 known plants that act as hypoaccumulators (EPA. 1998).
If these plants are being used to extract heavy metals or other toxic pollutants they are harvested and either composted to recycle the metals or incinerated after they grow to their full size. The incinerators plant waste is put into a hazardous waste landfill, and the amount of ash is only ten percent of the volume that would be created if the contaminated soil were treated without using phytoextraction. Many plants easily uptake nickel, zinc, and copper by pyhtoextraction. Studies are being done in order to find out what plants would work most effectively in taking up lead and chromium.
Pytoremediation may be used to decontaminate levels of TCE (trichoroethylene) in ground water by using trees in the genus of populus, which include more than 25 species worldwide. TCE is a common pollutant from hazardous waste sits and it is a carcinogen that has been used as an industrial degreasing agent and for many other purposes, including medical and household uses. TCE has greater density that water so this causes it to fall the bottom of water aquifers and this means that it may be difficult for tree roots to reach the contaminate in order for detoxification of the ground water. One concern is that vinyl chloride may be an end product, and this is a stronger carcinogen (EPA. 1998).
Phytoremediation has been used to contain arsenic in groundwater, PAHs and PCBs using trees, grasses, and legumes. To contain petroleum hydrocarbon plumes, toluene spills and nitrate and ammonia from groundwater by using alfalfa and poplars. Poplars and cottonwoods have been used to contain movement to of plumes of TCE in groundwater. Poplars contain the movement of plumes of solvents in groundwater and have been used to stop landfills from leaching. By constructing wetlands with species of plants that reduce nitrogen, TNT, RDX, HMX, and DNT explosives have been removed from groundwater (EPA. 1998).
Phytostabilization is using certain plant species to immobilize contaminants in the soil and ground water through absorption by the roots, up through the roots or as the contaminants get into more branches of the root systems. Phytostabilization makes the containment more immobile and stops it from getting into ground water and air. It also lowers the ability for the containment to get into the food chain. The method of phytostabilisation works well in sites where the ground vegetation needs to be building back up because of high levels of containment metal buildup on top layers of soil.
Plants breakdown organic pollutants that contain carbon and hydrogen atoms, or contain and stabilize metal containments by acting as filters of traps that extend into the ground as vast root systems. Phytoremediation is a solar driven process, and it is reliable and effective because it is carried out in the very process of plant growth.
Phytoremediation is a natural and sustainable method of wastewater decontamination and is made use of in living systems that treat water. Research is still being done on pytoremediation to better understand factors such as how variations in climate, soil, and types of plants interplay on the rate of toxic metal uptake. Further work needs to be done in order to prove to regulators tat pytoremediation is an effective method to use in the detoxification of soil and water.
Learn more about phytoremediation: Cross 2002.
The term bioremediation is similar to the term phytoremediation, yet "bio" means life, and bioremediation uses mircoorganisms to clean toxic containaments out of wastewater or soil. Bioremediation uses natural methods in order to treat wastewater.
Find out more about bioremediation: U.S. Geological Survey 2003.
The town of Johnson, Vermont's wastewater treatment facility has recently received a Regional Operations and Maintenance Excellence Award for 2002 from the E.P.A. View the award by clicking on the following link: Town of Johnson 2003.
Eco Economy: Building an Economy for the Earth. 2001. Lester R. Brown. Earth Policy Institute. Text cited from page 132. Published by WW Norton and Company, New York and London.
In Context. A quarterly of Humane Sustainable Culture. 2001: Retrieved on February 24th from: http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC35/Guterson.htm.
If you Love This Planet: A Plan to Heal the Earth.1992. Helen Caldicott, M.D. Text cited from page 87. Published by WW Norton and Company, New York and London.
Living Machines, Inc. 2003. South Burlington Living Macine. Retrieved on March 24th from http://www.livingmachines.com/htm/study1.htm.
Net Green,2003. Schematics of Grey Water Irrigation System.Water Conservation. Retrieved on 3 February from: http://www.netgreen.biz/water%20conservation.htm.
Nasa.2003. Sunset picture taken by the crew on board of the Columbia on its last mission. Retrieved on May 1 from: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030324.html
Oasis Design.2002. Self Cleaning Overflow, Eco Village,Miniature Constructed Wetland. Huehuetortuga, Morelos, Mexico. Retrieved on February 3 2003 from: http://www.oasisdesign.net/design/examples/huehue.htm.
Permaculture: A Designers Manual.1999. Bill Mollison. Text cited from page 172.Published by Tagari Publication, Tyalgum, Australia.
REU Environmental Sciences and Engineering. Living Machines.Clarkson. 2002 Retrieved on March 22, 2003 from: http://www.clarkson.edu/reu/burlington.html#Living.
The Sierra Club 2003. Clean Water. Retrieved on 30 April 2003 from: http://www.sierraclub.org/cleanwater/bush_cripple.asp
Triangle School Waste Water Treatment. 1997. Retrieved on 3 February 2003 from http://waterrecycling.com/waterreuse.htm.
Town of Johnson 2003. EPA wastewater treatment award to the town of Johnson, VT. Retrieved on March 18th from: Town of Johnson Wastewastewater Award.
The Missouri Botanical Garden. 2002. John W. Cross. Phytoremediation. Retrieved on March 15th from:http://www.mobot.org/jwcross/phytoremediation.
The Natural Resource Defense Council. 2003. The Natural Resource Defense Council. 2003. http://www.nrdc.org/water/default.asp .
Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commision, 2003. Pollution Prevention for wastewaters. Retrieved on May 7th from: http://www.twua.org/p2/Pollutants/Mercury.html.
The U.S. House of Representatives. 2003. Retrieved on March 25th from: http://www.house.gov/.
The U.S. Geological Survey. 2003. A bureau of the Department of the Interior. Bioremediation: Nature's Way to a Cleaner Environment. Retrieved on March 24th from: http://water.usgs.gov/wid/html/bioremed.htm.
The Vermont Legislature. 2003, 2004. Retrieved on March 24th from: http://www.leg.state.vt.us/legdir/legdir2.htm.
U.S. Department of Agriculture.Agricultural Researce Service. 2003. Retrieved on March 15th from http://www.nal.usda.gov/wqic/.
U.S. Environment at Risk: A project of State PIRG's (Public Interest Research Groups) 2003. Retrieved on March 14th from: http://www.environmentatrisk.org.
U.S. EPA. 2003. Ground Water and Drinking Water. Retrieved on April 24th from: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/mcl.html
U.S. EPA. 2003. Retreived on March 15th from: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/arsenic.html.
U.S. EPA. 1998. Office of solid waste and Emergency Response. Retrieved April 8th, 2003 from: http://www.epa.gov/oswer/.
U.S. EPA. 1998. Technology Innovation Office under a National Network of Environmental Management Studies Fellowship.Phytoremediation of ground water using poplus. Retrieved April 8th, 2003 from: http://clu-in.org/products/phytotce.htm.
U.S. PIRG (Public Interest Research Group) 2002. Richard Caplin. Retrieved on March 14th, 2003 from: http://uspirg.org/uspirgnewsroom.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________