In 1996, the United States experienced one of its greatest cases of water contamination. The contamination took place in Hinkley, California and started in 1952 when the town’s groundwater was contaminated with hexavalent chromium by a utility known as Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E). The town was completely unaware of this constant contamination by PG&E until a woman by the name of Erin Brockovich realized that that chromium in the water may be linked to multiple cases of tumors and other medical problems with some of the townspeople. In 1996, she brought this case to court and it resulted in a legal case against PG&E and a $333 million dollar settlement. Although situations similar to this keep occurring in the United States today, the U.S has one of the cleanest and safest public drinking water supplies in the world. “Over 286 million Americans get their tap water from a community water system. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates drinking water quality in public water systems and sets maximum concentration levels for water chemicals and pollutants.”(Authors name and date is N/A, Water-related Diseases and Contaminants in Public Water Systems, 2/18/14, http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/water_diseases.html) Although the United States provides reliable and safe water, there is still need for improvement to stop these preventable incidents of water contamination. Year after year, the United States experiences numerous water contaminations that bring negative effects, both environmental and economic, to the nation and its people but there are a plethora of solutions to help solve this problem.
To completely understand this issue, the process of how typical United States water is filtered and treated mu...
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... that produce these harmful contaminates to stop allowing chemical waste to enter U.S water supplies. Lastly, the U.S may need to completely update their entire water infrastructure because the current water infrastructure has many flaws. These main flaws are that the current water treatment process is not one hundred percent effective, the chemicals used to treat contaminates can create chemical by-products that pose a threat to human health, and there is many problems, including lead, in the piping system. Although creating and implementing a completely new and up to date water infrastructure may be extremely pricy, some believe it is what is necessary to have healthier and cleaner water. Water is essential is all livings and is a crucial component to everyday life. The United States needs to put a higher emphasis on cleaner water because of its major importance.
The water crisis in Flint Michigan began as early as was as April of 2014. The crisis is concerning a small town called Flint, located at the bottom right of michigan were the majority of the population is African American. The issue began when the town 's water supply witch in past use to come from the detroit river water supply was switched over to the Flint river water supply. People soon began to complain about the taste, smell, and color of the tap water, and of symptoms such as hair loss and rashes from bathing in the water. Even though there were many signs that the water was indeed contaminated, such as when a General Motors plant in Flint stopped using municipal water in October of 2014, claiming that it corroded car parts, the government officials stated that the water was not a threat to the public 's health and safety. However it was later revealed that the water was in fact unhealthy, and contained too much lead. The issue was brought to the eyes of the public when Lee Anne Walters, a Flint resident. This mother of four had seen her family suffer from various alarming symptoms, including abdominal pains, hair loss, and rashes; she also has a son who showed signs of developmental problems. She decided to switch her family to bottled water, and the symptoms abated. Finally, in February of 2015, she demanded that the city test the tap water. A federal investigation was launched and the results came back shocking. The water was extremely toxic containing 400 parts per billion of lead. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there is no safe level of lead in drinking water, but the maximum allowed by law is 15 parts per billion. Virginia Tech professor and engineer Marc Edwards, an expert on municipal w...
There is also daily tasks of people trying washing fruits and vegetables. And not even being able to wash their hands. A quote from the michigan government says, “No one in Michigan or America should live that way in the 21st Century. But these generations of women, and so many more like them, do not trust the water coming out of their pipes.”(Interim Report). Many people is Flint have no trust in their government. They believe it’s all the governments fault because of this and it is. The people have to live a life of being scared of drinking their water, showering, and even washing their hands. No American in the United States should feel like this about their water system at all. For the people in Flint who have to look at brownish, stinky, funny-tasting water is just unacceptable and we need to make a change on this even though it has been out of hand for 3 years.
In the movie Erin Brockovich not only were children affected by the water contamination but the adults were also negatively affected. In this film the families were directly exposed to carcinogens that were used for water pressure in a multi-million dollar company located a few miles away from the home. One particular family that caught my attention was the first family that filed a case against Pacific Gas & Electric Company. Donna Jensen and her family filed a lawsuit again this company because of a real estate issue. Fortunately, Erin Brockovich worked as the lawyer's assistant and was the first individual to realize that this company was hiding the truth about the chemicals used in the facility. This information that PS&E was withholding from the local residents directly affected their health and
Both Barnett’s claim that bottled water is not better than tap water (139-141) and Gleick’s claim that specialized water is not better than tap water (118-120) demonstrate that companies’ claims are unreasonable. Furthermore, consumers assume bottled water is better than tap water because they have the impression that tap water is dangerous because of the tap water incident in “2003 [where] 400,000 people [got] sick” from drinking tap water. One may wonder whether companies use this incident to remind consumers how dangerous tap water is with the way Gleick presents bottled water companies even after the tap water is taken care of. Because Gleick portrays the deception of advertisement from bottled water businesses, he makes it clear that Barnett hints that they are taking advantage of the case by informing consumers that their water is safer than tap water in an indirect, subtle way. However, Barnett ensures readers that tap water are safe to drink again after the incident by proving that both bottled water and tap water are equally safe to drink with a study she provides: The testing from Florida Trend (magazine brand) concludes that Publix brand bottled water and tap water both contains “0.020milligrams per liter [of] THMs (trihalomethanes)”, a “common byproduct…linked to increased risk of cancer” (139-140). Although other bottled water brands may not have
Humans need water. In a world that is overpopulated, we use a lot of water and other natural resources. Currently, in our world, clean water is getting scarce. Recently, for example, Flint, Michigan, had a water crisis. In early 2016, the water was discovered to be tainted with lead and other toxins. Long before that, the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, and Governor Rick Snyder along with his council, knew about the lead, but to save money for the city of Flint in early 2014 Snyder had changed the city’s water source to the Flint River which had corroded pipes, causing people of all ages to be sick from the high amounts of lead
It is imperative that domestic water provided for direct consumption and ingestion through food must be sanitary. Scientific research indicates that as many as 19 million Americans may become ill each year due to parasites, viruses a...
Drinking water is one of our basic needs in order to survive, therefore the water that we drink and cook with must be of a high quality, and filtered of any harmful contaminants.
Water has become a very controversial issue in the United States and around the world. As populations increase and resources decrease, the way we use our resources and keep populations safe become more and more important. Throughout the world there are nearly 1.1 billion people who do not have access the clean drinking water. 5 Most of these 1.1 billion people are located in poor areas and do not have the financial means to build the infrastructures needed to provide water to the citizens of their country. 5 Drinking water is an essential part of our everyday life. People must have water to survive, but it must be clean and safe to consume.
More and more ways are being discovered to help treat water pollution around the world, but what needs to happen is to stop the pollution. Around the world water pollution is a definite obstacle; luckily South Carolina has everything it needs to make sure the local community household water is clean and sanitary for use. Lots of countries around the world have no access to clean water or the technology to filter their water. “Water pollution has increased in both developed and developing countries, undermining economic growth as well as the physical and environmental health and quality of life for billions of people” (Tortajada and Cecilia). In the local community water pollution has also continued to increase over the years, before 1970 all waste water was distributed directly into the Charleston Harbor. Because of this the harbor already had pollution even before people began to litter. Now polluting the Charleston Harbor is plastic bottles, Styrofoam, and many other man-made products people carelessly threw out their car windows or left on the grown. There are many more ways to clean the water and prevent pollution today than there were in from 1950-1970.
It’s no mystery that having clean water is a fundamental element to living in a prosperous society and one of the few things essential for human survival. Water not only sustains our health, but is required in making everything from electronics to clothes. Clean water may seem as ordinary as putting on your shoes, but it’s a daily party of our life that’s being threatened.
Americans go to the sink knowing with a simple flip of the nosil, clean water will magically appear. It is often presumed that clean water is a given and it is never acknowledged that saving water in one country could evidently help another country's water...
Clean water is needed for good human and animal health, but as DoSomething.org states, over 1 billion people worldwide don’t have a means of getting clean drinking water, an...
Having clean water to drink means that water must have microbial, chemical and physical characteristics that meet WHO guidelines or national standards on drinking water quality. Around 780 million people in the world don’t have access to clean drinking water (Millions Lack Safe Water). More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Nearly all deaths, 99 percent, occur in developing countries. Around the world, diseases in unclean water kill about 1,400 children every day (Clean Drinking Water). There are many organizations that raise money in order to help develop ways or create ways for people to obtain clean drinking water. However, many people are unaware that this is even a problem in other countries because we take clean water for granted.
Clean Water: “An under-appreciated liquid to Survive” Water is pure and transparent liquid that is vital for all humans, plants and animals on the planet. In the United States, people have access to clean drinking water and clean sanitation systems, not like in other parts of the world where clean, safe drinking water is getting scarce. A lot of people don’t have access to it, and many regions are suffering severe drought. Yet, when humans take it for granted, they don’t appreciate that a reliable, clean supply of water is essential to human health, economy and agricultural prosperity. Having clean and safe potable water is a right, and not a privilege.
The United States of America is founded on the idea that all men and women are created equal with certain unalienable rights. These are the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Americans are confused on what to prioritize: making a profit for personal happiness or the unalienable right to life. Water is a necessity for life. Therefore, clean water is a right that has been taken advantage of, and used as a commodity.