Persuasive Essay On Buckeye Lake

1275 Words3 Pages

In the news we hear about all the problems with water pollution in third-world countries, making the problem feel sort of foreign to us. However, water pollution is much closer to your home than you might think. As a matter of fact all kinds of different pollution affects us all the time, it can be in the food we eat, the air we breathe, and the water we drink. Pollution has plagued our beloved Buckeye Lake and we intend use the process of dredging to provide a short-term solution, until another, more permanent solution is put in place. Water pollution is a very serious problem as it affects one of the most essential ingredients to our very livelihood. The earth is covered in water, in fact about 70% of the Earth is covered in water, only …show more content…

Originally the land itself was swampland, created by the retreating Wisconsian glacier, over 10,000 years ago, and was given the name “The Big Swamp” by Native Americans living around it. In the early 1800s as canals became increasingly popular as a means of transporting goods a canal system was proposed to link the Ohio and Erie canals. A hefty supply of water was needed to keep the water levels up enough for them to be actually usable, so they came up with the idea of creating five “feeder lakes” to accomplish this. Buckeye Lake was one of these five and the marshland was dammed up and filled with water in the mid 1800s. Buckeye Lake is a very important place to a lot of people in central Ohio. After the Ohio Canal was shut down in 1894 the lake became a state park, with the lake itself covering 4000 acres and having thirty miles of shoreline (Buckeye Lake, para. 12). The lake became a vacation spot for families across central Ohio, looking for a day or weekend of leisure, earning it the nickname “Playground of Ohio”, a place close to home where they could swim and play in the water. It became even more popular when cottages, hotels, businesses, and even an amusement park starting popping up along the banks of the …show more content…

The algal growths in the lake feed on phosphorus mostly caused by fertilizer runoff from farms and local residences. Microcystin, a toxin that causes liver problems, is produced by the growths have caused major health concerns for wildlife and people using the lake. It is our moral obligation to clean up this mess or it will continue to harm the wildlife and environment in and the lake, as we are the one’s solely responsible for it. Organizations such as the Ohio EPA and Buckeye Lake for Tomorrow, have taken a notice to the pollution of Buckeye Lake and are formulating plans to return the lake to its former glory. Our plan is to provide a short term solution for the lake via the process of dredging, while a much larger and permanent solution is put in

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