Drugs found in Drinking Water

by: Jeff Donn

Associated Press

9/12/08

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-03-10-drugs-tap-water_N.htm

This image shows how drugs could get into our water.
http://www.seechangehappen.com/see_change_happen/current_affairs/

Summary:

A large group of drugs have been found in drinking water for over 41 million Americans. This is causing concern for the long-term health of consumers. So how do the drugs get into our water? People take pills and when they are taken, they are washed down the toilet through waste. Then when they go through the process of cleansing again for water, some of the drug residue is still not removed. The AP National Investigative Team reviewed that Philadelphia has had 56 pharmaceuticals in treated drinking water. Also, there were 61 found in the city's watersheds. In fact, the federal government does not even have any testing for safety set up. Sometimes people that get bottled water could have drugs in their water because the water is not tested. Some of the reasons that this is such an issue is also because people have been taking more and more drugs, both responsibly and irresponsibly. Unfortunately, this affects how big of an amount of drugs are in our water today. One thing that could help this problem is to use reverse osmosis, however it costs a lot of money for a large amount. Also, it leaves more polluted water. Even though drugs are supposed to be tested safe for a humans for a couple of months, this will happen for years on end.

Opinion/Reflection:

Personally, I think that it is ridiculous that there are still drugs in our water today. How can we possibly still have drugs in our water when we have the highest of technology then ever before? We should most definitely be able to test if there is or isn't drugs in the water. We shouldn't have to worry about anything in between.

Questions:

How can we save our water through testing?

What effect will this have over a long period of time for us humans?

Why do you think no one is doing anything about this?

Who's fault is this?

Ground Water Balance

"Water balance of global aquifers revealed by groundwater footprint" 

Tom Gleeson, Yoshihide Wada, Marc F. P. Bierkens, and Ludovicus P. H. van Beek

August 9, 2012

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7410/full/nature11295.html#/author-information

This diagram shows aquifer sizes and locations and groundwater footprints.

Summary: This article was about how groundwater footprints are being used to track how fast groundwater is being used to how fast it is replenishing. Groundwater is an area of fresh water that helps keep ecosystems alive, supply drinking water to humans, and supplies water for farming, or any other type of agriculture. Recently there has been a major decrease in groundwater all over the world. A groundwater footprint is "the area required to sustain groundwater use and groundwater-dependent ecosystem services." Humans are affecting Earth's groundwater footprint because we are using groundwater so fast that we are taking all of the fresh water from many large aquifers all over the world, especially in Asia and North America. The article stated that the groundwater footprint for the whole world is about 3 and a half times larger than the total area of aquifers themselves. Because of that, many people live in ares that depend on groundwater but they are threatened because of the lack of groundwater left. Scientists are now trying to use the groundwater footprint to estimate whether or not groundwater will be able to renew its amount of groundwater in aquifers.

Opinion/Reflection: I think that this is a very important issue. If humans use up all of the groundwater from major aquifers, then there won't be any left for farming, or even for the ecosystem itself. Us, as humans, have to find a way to 1. either find a new source of fresh water, or 2. find a way to limit the amount of groundwater that we use. Also, I think that the groundwater footprint would be a very important in figuring out what it will take to help renew groundwater in aquifers in order to lower the percent of groundwater footprint size compared to the total are of aquifers themselves.

Questions:
1. What do you think humans should do in order to help preserve groundwater and aquifers?
2. What do you think would happen to the local ecosystem in all of the groundwater is drained from the local aquifer?
3. If the current rate of groundwater use occurs without being renewed, how do you think that would affect Earth as a whole?

Water, Water Everywhere

Water, Water Everywhere...But Not Enough for Business
By: Emily HolBrook
Published on website in June of 2009
http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SPL2298H-0-1067&artno=0000295305&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=lead%20in%20water&title=Water%2C%20Water%20Everywhere%2E%2E%2EBut%20Not%20Enough%20for%20Business&res=Y&ren=Y&gov=Y&lnk=N&ic=N




http://www.calvert.com/water/images/graph.jpg


  This picture/ chart shows that there is not much fresh water on earth and that less than one percent of that three percent is actually usable and easy to get. There is barely enough fresh water to begin with and the fact that less than one percent of all of the fresh water on earth is usable is a crazy statistic!


Summary:
          This article is about the scarcity of fresh usable water there is on earth and the risk that we are going to use it all up. There are six different sections in the article. Agriculture: The world's sponge is the first one and it basically just states that the agriculture field uses up seventy percent of the world's fresh water! By 2050 they believe that the amount of water agriculture will use will be close to ninety percent! China and India face the harshest water availability challenges due to irrigation projects.  Extractive Industries: Dirty Run-Off is the second section of this article. This part of the article talks about how oil and mining industries facing water scarcity. They use water for wells and more. They also use a high amount of water. The third section of the article is called Food & Beverage: A Reputational Risk. This section is about how major food and beverage companies are using enough water by themselves to service the world for a full day. The fourth section is called Semiconductors: Seeking Water From Silicon Valley to India. This section covers the topic of mega- companies like Texas Instruments use close to eleven billion gallons of pure fresh water in 2007! The fifth section is called Apparel: Thirsty Cotton. In order to create cotton you use a lot of water. It takes about twenty five cubic meters of water to produce one cotton t-shirt! The final section is Managing Water Scarcity. This section talks about laws that cover water uses and the amount of water that can be used. This section also is about ways to save water and how major companies are cutting back on water usage.

Opinion/ Reflection:
           I believe that it is so crazy that of the billions and billions of gallons on earth that only three percent of it is freshwater and not saltwater. Plus of that three percent less that one percent of that water is available on the surface! I also think it is ridiculous that there is so much of our fresh water being used for things that are not as essential to life as water or food. For example we do not necessarily need oil or coal. They create pollution and then destroy our fresh water even more! I think that we should ban the use of fresh water usage in oil and mining fields. I also think that it is ridiculous that we have used eleven billion gallons of water in the food and beverage field! This does make sense though because we do need water to create food and other beverages.

Questions:
1. How do you think that we can help reduce the amount of freshwater that we use?
2. How, if possible, can we replenish our freshwater that was used?
3. What would it be like on a world where there is  no fresh water that can be used?
4. Why do major companies rely so heavily on freshwater and not salt water?

Tundra Article

Artic Tundra, Whitney S., 2002
http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/tundra.htm


Picture Discription: This is a picture of the Artic Tundra. I thought it would go well because my article was about the tundra. It dispics the tundra very well.

Summary:
The artic tundra is one of the youngest tundra biomes formed 10,000 years ago. The tundra has 10 inches to 3 feet of snow on the ground. It has plants moss and othere organisms living on it. There are only 2 main seasons summer and winter in the artic tundra. The tundra is like a dessert it does not get much rain each year. Suprisingly organisms still live on it. there is not a lot of biodiversity in the tundra. It is one of the three major carbon dioxide sink. The tundra is a very fragile enviorment. It is very polluted from everything around it. the tundra is a big wastle land but has some organism who live off the land.

Opinion/Reflection:
The tundra may be a wasteland but we need to preserve it. It is a major carbon sink. Making it a little useful. Also a few types of organisms live on it and we should make sure they are okay on that land. The articl taught me alot about the artic tundra. I learned a lot of stuff i did not know.

Questions:
1. What types of organisms do you think live on the artic tundra? And what do the do to survive?
2. Do you think we should preserve the artic tundras or any tundras?
3.  How do you think the artic tundra formed and why so late after the other tundras?

Ireland's Animals Facing Extinction

'Invastional Meltdown' a threat to Irish mammals
http://www.biodiversityscience.com/2012/09/26/invasional-meltdown-a-threat-to-irish-mammals/
By: Neil Reid
September 2012

                 Native small mammals such as the wood mouse and pygmy shrew are threatened by the introduction of non-native species

 

 

Summary:

           Over the past 100 years, Ireland has had alien mammals coming into thier land. Since this is happening, the mamals that have already lived in Ireland are starting to go extinct and their habitats are being affected too. For the past 2 years, a study was shown to show the impact of when non-native animals, the bank vole and the greater white toothed shrew, affected 2 native animals, the wood mouse and pygmy shrew. These studies have shown that the bank vole has occupied a third of the island over 80 years but the greater white toothed shrew just arrived recently so the numbers would be different. This study also showed the negative aspects of the 2 non-native mammals. The outcome of this was that the greater white toothed shrew had a positive affect on the bank vole but a negative affect on the wood mouse and pygmy shrew. The author said, "If the rate of invasion continues as at present throughout the island of Ireland, its native small mammals will die out in at least 80 per cent of their available habitat." What this means is that if Ireland still has "alien" mammals coming to thier land, then the small mammals will lose 80% of their habitat. The governments in both the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland have joined to together to try and solve this problem by trying to monitor the "alien" mammals.

 

Opinion/Reflection:   

                  I was really surprised by how just adding a few non-native animals, then the ecosystem that is already there starts to change. So when the bank vole greater white toothed shrew were added, it was coolto learn how they handled ther new enviroment. I also felt bad though for the wood mouse and pygmy shrew becasue they were losing the habitat that was already theirs to a new species. I know I would not be happy if someone would just walk on my territory so we need to help them. Also, I like the way Ireland is handling the situation at hand. They are addressing the problem and trying to find a way to solve it.

 

Questions: 

1.How can we protect our endagered species from extinction?

2.What would happen if we added non-native species to our ecosystems?

3.What types of animals need human protection so they don't become extinct in the U.S?

4.How can we help the enviroment so an animal's habitat does not become destroyed?