Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 70 to 140 billion gallons of water are used to fracture 35,000 wells in the United States each year. This is approximately the annual water consumption of 40 to 80 cities each with a population of 50,000. Fracture treatments incoalbed methane wells use from 50,000 to 350,000 gallons of water per well, while deeper horizontal shale wells can use anywhere from 2 to 10 million gallons of water to fracture a single well. The extraction of so much water for fracking has raised concerns about the ecological impacts to aquatic resources, as well asdewatering of drinking water aquifers. It has been estimated that the transportation of a million gallons of water (fresh or waste water) requires 200 truck trips.
People may contract serious illnesses or even worse, die from drinking contaminated water. Body Paragraph # 3 - Hypotheses: If oil is dumped on the ground, then the groundwater below will not contain traces of oil. If vinegar is dumped on the ground, then the groundwater below will be contaminated with vinegar. If laundry detergent is dumped on the ground, then the groundwater below will be contaminated with laundry detergent. If water mixed with soil is passed through a filtration system, then it will emerge free of soil.
Thus, both the Jordan River and the Dead Sea are shrinking, leading to serious environmental and economic concerns (Held 32). The Middle East is constantly growing in population. They are home to 6.3% of the world’s population and contain only 1.4% of the world’s renewable fresh water (Wessels 131). This is a problem. We don’t even think about how much water we use in a day.
In the article by O’Rourke she says “Each year, the United States disposes of some 30 billion empty bottled-water containers. Water bottles are filling up our landfills: Two million tons of plastic water bottles a year ultimately end up in them.” These facts are not considering the products used to seal, package, and contain the bottles which may include card board. All this manufacturing can ultimately affect the climate and environment. She also talks about how the people that buy the bottled water rarely recycle them she says “fewer than 15 percent of PET bottles are recycled”. While water bottles are able to be recycled it has been found that the majority are disposed of by trash or being left behind somewhere.
Pollution Pollution is a large contributor to water poisoning. Water takes up 71% of the earth, with 96.6% being oceans. As of 2014, a study by the PNAS, or Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that 88% of the ocean’s surface is covered in plastic debris. And sadly, this only accounted for 1% of the plastic that is in the ocean. Although, the study is only based on 3,070 pieces of plastic from around the world, which seems like nothing compared to the 5.25 trillion pieces in the ocean.
The North of China houses 40% of the population. This is just under half, and shockingly it only supplies 8% of the water supply in China, this causes serious droughts in Beijing. There are many reasons why. Firstly, is purely due to the lack of rainfall in the north of China. On average, the North only gets about 300 mm a year.
Water Disinfecting Through Chemicals Do we need to purify water? How many of us get purified water? Are people in developing countries are getting purified water like developed countries? Water is the most essential thing we require since we joined the world, with out water we can’t survive. There are many people that are always ill because of not getting purified water like us especially in Africa recent studies show that only forty six percent of African people get clean water.
We need water to stay clean and healthy. However, all water intended for consumption needs to be sanitized and treated, so knowing that there are many reasons to why there are certain circumstances where people have to be charged for water can be understood. Humans are very limited to the amount of fresh water on Earth. There are Federal Government clean-up programs along with the Clean Water Act that has made safer for drinking. (LLC) If the Administration continues to help keep these programs up to date there will be more room to provide water without charge.
In fact between 1780 and 1980 sixty acres of wetland were destroyed every hour (ODW). Ignoring the importance of wetlands has lead to half of the wetlands in the entire United States being drained or filled. Ohio has had 90% of its original wetlands destroyed; this is only trumped by California in largest percent of wetland destroyed. Wetlands are a valuable resource in our ecosystem that seems to receive little discussion with most environmentalists. A piece of land is determined to be a wetland by three characteristic.
If you check back in a thousand or million years, no doubt these numbers will be different! Notice how of the world's total water supply of about 332.5 million cubic miles of water, over 96 percent is saline. And, of the total freshwater, over 68 percent is locked up in ice and glaciers. Another 30 percent of freshwater is in the ground. Fresh surface-water sources, such as rivers and lakes, only constitute about 22,300 cubic miles (93,100 cubic kilometers), which is about 1/150th of one percent of total water.