Have you ever wondered where all the water goes after a heavy rain? Water generally doesn’t have any problems soaking into porous ground surfaces, like soil. However, impervious surfaces like driveways, paved roads, sidewalks, and streets prevent the ground from soaking in the water. And with urban sprawl, the amount of asphalt and concrete is rapidly replacing fields and pasture land.
Wetlands are areas that have been protected by the federal government through regulations like Section 404 of the Clean Water Act, due to the important role they play in the ecosystem. They are areas where water saturates the soil, called hydrology, or there’s a prolonged presence of water near the soil for all or most of the year. These conditions foster a specially adapted ecosystem of plants, called hydrophytes, and terrain, called hydric soils.
Two-thirds of our earth’s surface is covered with water. It plays a vital role in cooling the land and sustaining life. It provides habitat for multiple ecosystems as well as allows people to grow food, carry waste, generate power, as well as many other functions of daily living. Over 250 million people in the US rely on freshwater from our rivers, streams, lakes, and ground water supply. Yet, with the majority being saltwater, less than 0.7% of our planet’s water is fresh water.
Let’s face it; we live in a polluted environment. Groundwater becomes contaminated when man-made by-products mix with the water supply. These products include gasoline, oil, road salts, and heavy metals. They come from septic systems, storage tanks, landfills, fertilized fields, highway runoff and the list goes on and on. Once these pollutants mix with groundwater, it is no longer fit for direct consumption without additional treatment.
Why We Pay For Water Featured
One of the most inflated commodities is water, even though it’s the most abundant resource on earth. Water covers ¾ of the earth’s surface but has somehow become very costly. What used to be free, now commands a price. One can no longer drink the water coming from faucets, unless it is purified. Gone are the days when you can savor fresh and totally natural water from streams and rivers. Indeed, water pollution has overtaken this age.
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