Baily Ortensi, eighth grader at Granby Jr./Sr. High wrote this essay as a class assignment for teacher Joan Vohl Hamilton.
This is Baily Ortensi. By BAILY ORTENSI, Granby Jr./Sr. High
Imagine traveling for miles and miles searching for fresh, clean water. Then come to find out it has been polluted and unsafe to drink. The Earth is covered in water. Nighty-eight percent of this water is salt and people cannot drink salt water. Of the two percent of fresh water, more than half of it is trapped in polar ice caps, glaciers and permafrost.
If all the water people drink gets polluted, what will humans and other animals have to drink? Water pollution is bad for the environment, animals and people, and it is dwindling the small supply of freshwater on earth. Water is needed for many reasons, especially the environment.
Water pollution is hurting the environment quite a lot. From acid rain to trash in the rivers and oceans, the environment is being hurt by pollution. Lakes and rivers that have been affected by water pollution can no longer support biodiversity in species. Acid rain can destroy forests everywhere. What is acid rain? Well, acid rain is liquid that is from the atmosphere that contains extra sulfuric and nitric acids. When acid rain hits the ground it affects all kinds of plants. That means that if there is a farm nearby or where there is acid rain, many people’s food will be affected by acid rain. This could mean less food and no money for the farmer. Also, the soil will become polluted. This will lead to more problems for that poor, unlucky farmer. Now what about an oil spill like the BP oil spill that happened in 2011? An oil spill like that could affect food sources underwater, aquatic plants, and can even spread diseases through water. Water pollution can cause many effects on the environment, like acid rain and oil spills.
Water pollution doesn’t just affect the environment; it also affects people and other animals. People can’t drink polluted water, and neither can animals. If anyone did, they could get very sick and possibly die. When an oil spill occurs, it kills thousands of fish. Fish can’t breathe the polluted water. Also, an oil spill takes away the ability to fish in an area. Since the fish can’t survive in polluted water, what happens when people or other animals eat fish that have been affected by the oil spill? These animals and people can get sick, too. Water pollution can damage entire food chains. When people drop their trash in the water, fish and mammals that live in the water could be hurt by them. If a fish or mammal eats a piece of trash, then it could die. Altered water temperatures caused by people can kill all aquatic life in a pond or a lake. Some health problems water pollution can cause include problems with people’s hearts, liver and kidneys. Also, it can cause diarrhea, cancer, and even cholera. Water pollution can cause many bad effects for people as well as animals.
Water pollution isn’t just affecting the environment and animals, it is also limiting the small amount of fresh water on the planet. The earth is mostly made up of water, salt water, that is. 97 percent of all water on earth is salt water. Salt water is unusable as drinking water because of the high amounts of salt. Of the other 3 percent of water, about 2/3 of the water is trapped in glaciers, snow and permafrost. Permafrost is permanently frozen soil. The last 1/3 is what people and animals use as drinking water and for other uses. That’s only 0.036 of all the water on earth. If everyone pollutes the water, no one can drink it, or even use it to wash. Maybe one person throws a single bag of trash into the water. Eventually that will reach someone’s water supply and pollute it. Just one bag can pollute an entire town’s drinking water, or a marine habitat.
Many people may say, “Why can’t we just figure out how to take the salt out of salt water? Wouldn’t that be easier than trying to “unpollute” or getting everyone to stop polluting the water?” Well people have been distilling water since the ancient Greeks. So what is holding people all over the world from distilling water? The cost. It costs about 10 times as much as taking water out of the ground. In a some places, like in some parts of Africa, people can’t afford taking water out of the ground so how can they distill water? Until people find a way to distill sea water affordably and widespread, people need to keep their waters clean and unpolluted. That’s why people need to be careful with the fresh water sources on earth, or they will lose the privilege of the little amount there is. In addition, we pollute the ocean, so what good would that do? Fish are killed, and so is marine life.
Water pollution is bad for the environment, people and animals, and is also limiting the freshwater on earth. If people aren’t careful, and take the limited water for granted, then there may no longer be any water to use. Distilling salt water is still too expensive to be used effectively in a widespread manner. Until then and even when that happens, people need to watch how they treat their water, and don’t pollute!
This essay was written as a class assignment for eighth grade-teacher Joan Vohl Hamilton.