Water Pollution-- the Basics

Pollution is defined as "to make foul or unclean; dirty". That sounds pretty bad when you think about it, right? Water pollution occurs when a body of water is negitively effected by an addition of minerals. When water is no longer capable of its intended use, the water is considered "polluted".

So you might say, "well, they clean the water I drink, so why does this matter to me?"

Water is in everything. Water is required for any living thing to survive. So imagine a polluted lake. The lake has grass growing all around it. The grass absorbs the water so it can survive. Then, cows come by and eat the grass. Then, the cows are milked to produce the very milk we drink (milk is 87.2% water). So, through the food web, water pollution comes back to us, the humans.

To find out more about the basics of water pollution, check out this link:

http://www.xomba.com/basics_of_water_pollution

Pollution Threats to the Ohio

For my first post, I wanted to start out local to get us thinking on a smaller scale:

The Ohio River is an important river on the southern edge of Ohio and the northern side of Kentucky. This river is a major tributary of the Mississippi and is used for things from drinking water to transportation.

A majority of Ohio's water pollution comes from:
-construction
-logging
-urbanization
-mining
-agriculture


If you want more imformation about pollution in the Ohio River, check out this link:

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Default.aspx?tabid=22451