The water we use everyday has
the potential to carry a lot of things we may not notice. Contaminated water can carry heavy metals,
chemicals, and more things that can harm us.
One of those things that we don’t think about too much in our everyday
lives is waterborne disease. Waterborne
diseases can come from a huge variety of sources. Some of the most common like cholera can
often come from sewage entering our drinking water. This can happen in water treatment plants
when they fail to fully decontaminate their water. It can also happen in when the water is in transportation if some
contaminate becomes entrained in a pipe carrying clean water. It can also happen in ground wells. This means some form of sewage, or waste has
seeped through the ground and contaminated a well from which someone is pulling
water. While wells are sometimes
contaminated in the United States, this is usually something more common in
third world countries. This is usually
due to lack of infrastructure. Treatment
of waste is something that often plagues these undeveloped countries. For the same reason, this waste is sometimes
actually discharged into water sources like rivers. Certain climates actually allow the bacteria
or microorganism to reproduce in the water.
This is something we in Ohio saw this summer in Lake Erie. Heavy rains this summer surpassed our
infrastructure’s capacity to carry water.
This resulted in a large amount of sewage/septic water entering Lake
Erie. This combined with high summer
temperatures created a perfect breading ground for bacteria. In 1993,
an outbreak of intestinal disorders and diarrhea occurred in Milwaukee and labs
discovered the presence of cryptosporidium in the water system throughout the
area. The protozoa infected about 400,000 people and it caused the most serious
waterborne disease outbreak in the United States. Cryptosporidium cysts are
difficult to detect, even in a well-equipped lab. And in 1993 we did not
have all the equipment we have today. So
this was a fairly difficult problem to solve.
The cyst formed by the protozoa is also difficult to kill because they
encapsulate themselves in a durable coating.
It was recommended residents boil their water for an extended period of
time or use bottled water. Dysentery is also a harmful condition that has affected
the U.S. in the past. It is actually
caused by two different organisms. One
of these is an ameba and the other is a shigella. A person can have symptoms of Dysentery after
ingesting as few as 10 of these organisms.
It is a very tricky thing to rid the water system of it once it is
entrained because it is resistant to many water treatment methods. Since sanitary conditions in the United States
have improved greatly this is something we don’t see as much of anymore. However, human waste (that has been treated)
is occasionally spread on fields in some states as fertilizers. It is obviously impossible to kill every
organism in that mixture. And
occasionally a few cases will pop up in the area due to a heavy rain resulting
in contamination.
We in this part of the
country (Ohio) tend to take plentiful clean water for granted. But in 2016, that cannot be said for the whole
country anymore. California is in the
middle of one of its biggest modern day droughts ever. It is currently getting water from other
parts of the United States because water is so scarce there. People are discouraged to water their grass
or even wash their cars.
But this is
not just a problem in California. In
fact it is a growing problem all over the world. This is largely because of the growing
population in the world, especially in third world countries. Have you ever thought about how much water
you really use a day? You may say the
water you drink and use to shower etc.
But there is a plethora of factors you don’t think about normally. What about your food? How much water does it take to raise a cow,
or grow the fruits and vegetables you eat.
The numbers would probably shock you.
So you see a person uses much more water than you think. So when you are adding thousands of people to
certain parts of the world annually it can be a big problem. The Middle East is the current hot bed for
such conflicts or “Water Wars”. And many
people speculate that water will be the topic surrounding the next big
war. And that may sound surprising at
first, but not so much when you think about it.
You can only survive about 3 days without water. So you can bet that people will do extremely
drastic things to get it. Add a drought
into the mix, and one country controlling the flow of a river to another, and
you have recipe for conflict. And it is
exactly that, that is happening now in the Middle East. Major dams on the Tigris and the Euphrates
are now seen as weapons of war. As
Islamic states like Iraq and Syria scramble for the liquid gold that is water. Old treaties are being re-evaluated due to
new conditions. Who get to uses the
water for what is up for dispute.
Currently (Sept 2016) the tensions are growing with every passing day
between many countries in the Middle East.
The UN is trying to intervene but is worried that this may be a conflict
that is resolved in war. It is
situations like this that make us realize how crucial water really is. Without water we can do virtually nothing,
and that includes simply living. Not
only is it our responsibility to conserve water, but also to keep it clean, so
we can re-use it. It is not out of this
world to think that someday the United States will have to deal with an issue
like this. The weather has shown us how quickly
climate and water supply can change, and at alarming magnitudes like in
California. Knowing this, it would be wise
to conserve as much water as we can now, and figure out new ways to keep it a
clean and renewable resource, for everyone to use.
Data:
Tree Location : 39°19'37.7"N 82°05'59.1"W
Lichen, probably something
you don’t think about too much. Lichen
grow on trees and rocks. They tend to be
grey or green coin sized patches on whatever surface the attach themselves
to. But what are they; they look like
some form of plant or fungi. Well if you
guessed either of those your actually right.
Surprisingly lichen are actually two organisms in one. The fungus and algae work together in a
process commonly referred to as symbiosis.
Symbiosis is the interaction
between two different organisms living in close physical association, typically
to the advantage of both. Beatrix
Potter, an English botanist, first speculated this. The fungi is bigger and gives the lichen most of its
structure. Where the smaller part, the
algae, is responsible for producing most of the energy for the duo, via
photosynthesis just like any other plant.
The roles that both the fungus and the algae contribute allow the lichen
to live in a wide variety of places.
Lichen come in all shapes and sizes.
However, there are three main types of lichen that are commonly
identified. Crustose, or crusty, lichen
are the flat spots you may most often see on rocks. They can look like spots scattered across
whatever service they are on. Another
type of lichen is the Foliose or leafy kind.
This is most commonly found on tree bark, it is larger and looks like
small leafs. Lastly there is the
fructicose kind, or the shrubby kind. In
our in class project, we are using lichen to asses air quality. The amount of lichen on a surface, in this
case a tree, can often indicate quality of the air. As pollutants inhibit the growth of
lichen. Also, being so fragile, and
taking so long to grow, a spike in pollution will have a huge effect on the
lichen population for us. Our group was
assigned trees all over Ohio University’s campus. I have included coordinates and pictures of
the tree I assessed. We took data more
than 1 meter above the ground for accurate readings. We
counted the colonies per quadrant, and than used a formula to get the standard
deviation for the tree. My tree was on
college green. The tree was fairly close
to several streets. This is important
because this means increased pollution when compared to a tree that would be in
the middle of the woods for example. In
this blog, you can see the results of my quadrant analyses. To collect this data, we used wooden or wire
templates with four squares cut into them.
We took data from the North, East, South, and West sides of the tree for
an accurate average. I have also
included pictures of the tree’s branches for species identification, as well as
a general site picture. Our hope is by
combining data, and looking at past data, we can get a general idea on the air
quality in the area. We should also be
able to see if there has been a decline or rise in pollution.
N:1,2,0,1
East: 0,1,1,1
South:0,2,0,1
West: 1,1,0,0
SD: 0.75
North:
East:
South:
West:
Branches:
Location:
The quality of our drinking
water and water all around the world is something that we see in our news very
frequently. Generally we tend to think
of water quality as a 3rd word problem, something that does not affect
us here in the U.S. However that could
not be farther from the truth. The
United States while having one of the most advanced water treatment facilities
and infrastructures still has a lot of water problems. Treatment facilities have a variety of
methods for producing clean water. They
have to test water to make sure it is safe for people and the environment
before releasing it. But this does not
solve all problems with drinking water.
If you follow the news, you have probably heard of the problems Flint,Michigan is having.
A switch in water
sources led them to have slightly corrosive water. This led to the deterioration of lead in the
pipes. And people all over the area ingested
harmful lead. And things like this are
not necessarily uncommon in the U.S.
Frequently water quality is an issue for debate on the world wide
stage. Which you can read about in my
previous post about the UN’s statements concerning water quality. But what else can be a problem in our
drinking water? Well for starters a big
one is Coliform and other types of bacteria.
When generally talking about Coliforms, we usually associate them with
sewage. Coliforms are found in a lot of places in the natural environment,
including the digestive tract of most animals.
Coliforms and other bacteria can enter our
water system when it comes in contact with sewage and/or waste runoff. This can become a huge problem because of the
rate that bacteria can multiply. This
happens more frequently that you may think.
It has happened a few times here in Athens, Ohio in the past year. When this happens, the city treatment plant
recommends you boil your water for 8 minutes before using it for
consumption. Many times, to disinfect
the system they may add elevated levels or Chlorine to the water to kill any
remaining bacteria. Because of this, you
should always let your water run in your house after a boil alert to flush out
excess chlorine. Hard water is also a
problem that many homes have across the United States. This can cause excessive calcium build up on appliances
and pipes in homes. Which can cause some
serious and expensive problems if it gets to far out of control. However, generally this can be fixed with a
water softener. Another way of fixing
hard water and cleansing it is putting it threw a reverse osmosis system. This is gaining popularity in the United and
in Europe as the cost of instillation continues to go down. A simple charcoal filter is also a method of
purifying water. Another method that has
become increasingly popular in the world in the past decade is a filter attached
to the facet itself. A big brand for
this is Brita Water Filters.
