Water Pollution & Legislation Powerpoints
Happy Monday! Nov.
Today’s Agenda:
nd 2
2015
• Discuss Clean Water Act, River Fire, GPGP • Take Exit Ticket • Work on River Basin Project • Projects due & will present Wed. • Test on Hydrology Unit = Friday
Today’s Objec?ve: • Explain the causes & consequences of water polluDon
REVIEW • Everyone lives in a river ________; basin we live in the ______________________ Cape Fear River Basin • A river _______ basin is the land that water flows across or under on its way to a river • It can be broken up into water sheds _____ • An _________ Estuary is a semi-‐enclosed area where fresh water from a river meets salty water from the sea
Today’s Agenda • We will discuss water pollu?on (Cuyahoga River Fire & GPGP) as well as water acts
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
• Environmental policy: pertains to human interacDons with the environment • Regulates resource use or reduce polluDon • The threat of overexploita?on is a driving force behind much environmental policy • “Tragedy of the Commons”
ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
• Environmental policy goals: protect resources against the tragedy of the commons & promote equity
WHY ARE ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS UPOPULAR?
• Environmental laws are challenged, derided, & ignored • Environmental policy involves government regula?ons, which businesses & individuals view as overly restric?ve • Goes against human behavior, which is more geared towards short-‐term needs rather than long-‐term processes that involve environmental issues
WHY ARE ENVIRONMENTAL LAWS UPOPULAR? • There is a sensiDve balance between private rights & the public good
CLEAN WATER ACT - 1972 • The Clean Water Act (CWA) establishes the basic structure for regula?ng discharges of pollutants into the waters of the US & regulaDng quality standards for surface waters
CLEAN WATER ACT - 1972 • The basis of the CWA was enacted in 1948 and was called the Federal Water Pollu?on Control Act, but the Act was significantly reorganized & expanded in 1972 • "Clean Water Act" became the Act's common name with amendments in 1972.
CLEAN WATER ACT HIST ORY • The Clean Water Act had its roots in a 1956 cruise down the Mississippi River by Minnesota Democrat John Blatnik • While Blatnik was on the river to assess its locks, dams & levees, he was struck by the river's filth
CLEAN WATER ACT HIST ORY • Blatnik cra_ed the Federal Pollu?on Control Act of 1956 to provide research on the causes & treatment of polluDon, funding for wastewater treatment plants, & a conference mechanism for states along major water bodies to agree on polluDon limits & cleanups
CLEAN WATER ACT HIST ORY • A_er further research, he & others found that the water polluDon problem was bigger than they though and wrote a new bill to strengthen federal enforcement powers
• Eisenhower vetoed this legislaDon staDng that “Water polluDon is a uniquely local blight"
CLEAN WATER ACT HIST ORY • But when Kennedy took office a year later, expanding the water polluDon program was one of his 1st goals
• Congress delivered a new version of Blatnik's bill to Kennedy's desk that July, and this Dme it was signed into law.
BURNING RIVER • In addiDon to Blatnik’s advocacy, the Cuyahoga River fire also brought naDonal agenDon to the issue of water polluDon • On a Sunday morning in June 1969, the Cuyahoga River caught fire & Time magazine published a picture (although the picture was from a previous fire in 1952) • This picture got a whole naDon talking
BURNING RIVER
T IME MAGAZINE RAISES AWARENESS
• On August 1st 1969, Time magazine reported on the fire & on the condiDon of the Cuyahoga River. The magazine stated: • Some River! Chocolate-‐brown, oily, bubbling with subsurface gases, it oozes rather than flows. "Anyone who falls into the Cuyahoga does not drown," Cleveland's ciBzens joke grimly. "He decays". . . The Federal Water PolluBon Control AdministraBon dryly notes: "The lower Cuyahoga has no visible signs of life, not even low forms such as leeches & sludge worms that usually thrive on wastes." It is also -‐-‐ literally -‐-‐ a fire hazard.
BURNING RIVER
• The 1969 fire was not the first Dme the Cuyahoga had caught fire • At least a dozen fires had raged on the Cuyahoga since 1868 • Witnesses recount that fires on the river were a regular occurrence due to a persistent scum on the surface of the river from refuse oil discharged by refineries
BURNING RIVER
• Sparks from passing tugboats, trains, hot coal & welders' torches regularly turned the river into a raging torrent of flames • However, concerns for sanita?on & navigability took precedence over consideraDon of polluted waters during this era of rapid industrial growth
BURNING RIVER
• These concerns were reflected in the Refuse Act of 1890, which only prohibited river dumping that would “impede or obstruct naviga?on”
CUYAHOGA RIVER FIRE
• The 1969 Cuyahoga River fire elevated industrial pollu?on awareness to a na?onal level
• The EPA later passed the Clean Water Act of 1972. The Clean Water Act mandated that all rivers be “fishable & swimmable” by 1983 • Fortunately, the 1969 river fire marked the end of a long period of industrial pollu?on both in Cleveland and across the na?on
CUYAHOGA – CLEANER T ODAY
• The river is now much cleaner & conDnues to improve • Fish populaDons are back
• SDll shouldn’t eat fish caught it the river more than once or twice a month due to PCB & mercury levels found in the fish
CLEAN WATER ACT - 1972 • Under the CWA, EPA has implemented pollu?on control programs such as sebng wastewater standards for industry. It also set water quality standards for all contaminants in surface waters
Silent Spring described how DDT entered the food chain & accumulated in the fagy Dssues of animals, including human beings, causing cancer & geneDc damage
CLEAN WATER ACT - 1972 • The CWA made it unlawful to discharge any pollutant from a point source into navigable waters, unless a permit was obtained
SOURCE: hgp://www2.epa.gov/laws-‐regulaDons/history-‐clean-‐water-‐act
Review: Point Source vs. Nonpoint
• Point Source: Direct discharge into water • Nonpoint Source: Indirect discharge into water (runoff)
Rivers & Oceans • Besides rivers, oceans are also in danger of water polluDon & its effects
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
• Although the ocean covers two-‐thirds of the surface of the Earth, it is surprisingly vulnerable to human influences such as overfishing, polluDon from run-‐off, & dumping of waste from human ac?vity
• There is A LOT of waste in our oceans • Due to ocean currents, much of it gets carried & trapped in the same places, like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
• First "discovered" in 1997 by Capt. Charles Moore while he was crossing the Pacific a_er a yacht race
Great Pacific Garbage Patch • The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is a collecDon of marine debris in the North Pacific Ocean • Also known as the Pacific trash vortex, the garbage patch is actually 2 disDnct collecDons of debris bounded by the massive North Pacific Subtropical Gyre
• Ocean gyres are large systems of circular ocean currents formed by global wind pagerns & forces created by Earth’s rotaDon
Ocean Gyres
• The movement of the world’s major ocean gyres helps drive the “ocean conveyor belt” that circulates • ocean water around the planet
3 forces cause the circula?on of a gyre: global wind pagerns, Earth’s rotaDon, & Earth’s landmasses
Great Pacific Garbage Patch • A swirling sea of plasDc bags, bogles & other debris is growing in the North Pacific
Great Pacific Garbage Patch • The Great Pacific Garbage Patch stretches for hundreds of miles across the North Pacific Ocean, forming a nebulous, floaDng junk yard on the high seas
Great Pacific Garbage Patch
• The amount of debris in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch accumulates because much of it is not biodegradable.
• Many plas?cs, for instance, don’t wear down; they just break into Dnier & Dnier pieces “plas?c soup” “microplas?cs”
Where’s all that waste come from? • Mostly waste from land – microparDcles are from cleansers • Some waste comes from boats/oil rigs
Photodegrada?on
• In the ocean, the sun breaks down these plasDcs into Dnier & Dnier pieces, a process known as photodegrada?on • About 1.9 million bits of waste per square mile in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch • Marine debris can be very harmful to marine life in the gyre
Deadly Debris
• Loggerhead sea turtles o_en mistake plasDc bags for jellies, their favorite food
Deadly Debris
• A dead albatross chick photographed on Midway Atoll, a strip of sand and coral in the North Pacific
• Albatrosses mistake plas?c pellets for fish eggs & feed them to chicks, which die of starva?on/ ruptured organs
Deadly Debris
• Seals & other marine mammals are especially at risk • They can get entangled in abandoned plasDc fishing nets -‐ “ghost fishing”
Disrup?on of Food Webs
• Marine debris can also disturb marine food webs in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre • As microplasDcs & other trash collect on/near the surface of the ocean, they block sunlight from reaching plankton & algae below
Disrup?on of Food Webs
• Algae & plankton are the most common Autotrophs/producers in the marine food web _______________, • Recall -‐ Autotrophs are organisms that can produce their own nutrients from oxygen, carbon, & sunlight • If algae & plankton communiDes are threatened, the en?re food web may change
• Animals that feed on algae & plankton, such as fish & turtles, will have less food......
Who’s Responsibility?
• Because the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is so far from any country’s coastline, NO naDon will take responsibility or provide the funding to clean it up • Charles Moore, the man who discovered the vortex, says cleaning up the garbage patch would “bankrupt any country” that tried it
Source: hgp://educaDon.naDonalgeographic.com/educaDon/encyclopedia/great-‐pacific-‐ garbage-‐patch/?ar_a=1
Who’s Responsibility?
• Many individuals, students, & interna?onal organiza?ons are dedicated to prevenDng the patch from growing
Plas?ki
• Large catamaran made of plasDc bogles • The Plas?ki displayed:
• The strength & durability of plasDcs • The creaDve ways that they can be repurposed • The threat they pose to the environment when they don’t decompose
• 2010: The crew successfully navigated the from San Francisco, Cali. to Sydney, Australia