Lake Havasu is the largest U.S. city without a sewer system, and the septic systems leaked into the Colorado River, soiling their own water with nitrates and E. Coli. This did not affect just the residents of Lake Havasu, but also residents of states downstream such as Arizona and California.

When sewage and storm drains are combined, like in Milwaukee, storms cause them to overflow into the natural watershed. In 2004, more than 4 billion gallons of raw sewage ended up in Lake Michigan due to heavy rainfall. Roughly 3.5 Americans become ill from tainted water each year. Naegleria fowleri is a rare amoeba that lives in dirty waters and causes lethal brain damage within days of infection.

Farmers poison their own waters with ammonium nitrate from fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizer is the most serious groundwater pollution problem today. Perchlorate is a rocket fuel chemical that has also contaminated U.S. water, as well as MTBE from gasoline. MTBE is worse than gasoline spills due to its high water solubility, low adhesion, and poor biodegradability. How different chemicals react can also affect their danger. TCE is a highly toxic industrial degreaser, that easily sinks through and contaminates soil and groundwater.

Groundwater pollution has very expensive consequences. Bottled water is also still susceptible to contamination.

Chemicals are a huge polluter of waterways, but the sewage that ends up in our daily H2O also has a very large effect on us, whether we would like it to or not.

Lots of weird shit ends up in the sewers, such as baseballs, pigs and undergarments. Sludge from human waste is used to create fertilizer for non-edible crops. Wastewater is then cleaned with microbes and then disinfected with chlorine. Until recently, wastewater was simply disposed of as cheaply and quickly as possible, i.e., dumping it into rivers and oceans. The was stopped when the Cuyahoga River fires resulted in the Clean Water Act

More than half of Americans live on the coasts, and most coastal city wastewater ends up in the ocean. While the water is usually treated to be clean, this water will take hundreds of years for that water to return due via the water cycle, and is thus wasteful

Wastewater is a valuable resource that literally increases with the population. While it isn’t always drinking quality, wastewater can be used to satisfy many other water needs such as irrigation, coolant, washing, etc. A big problem in recycled water is flushed drugs and toiletries because the treatment process doesn’t remove them. The amounts are incredibly small and not harmful, but the consequences of ingesting small amounts of many drugs are not yet known. Regardless of human health effects, these chemicals have negative effects on aquatic organisms, including intersex gamete production in fish

Research by: Russell Mason

Our waterways are the lifeline of the earth and our oceans are the heart at which these ways meet. Much like we have to watch the fuel we put in our bodies, the same can be said about our water cycle. Our water cycle, though, cannot pick and choose the items that enter its environment. It must rely on its caretakers. But who might these caretakers be? Us, of course. Water provides so much for us and its care comes second to convenient dumping. Islands of trash float in our oceans; entire ecosystems decimated by the idea of the mighty dollar. But there’s still hope. I have come up with 3 ways that you give back to our waterways:

1. Buying a reusable water bottle
   1. One of the most common pieces of trash floating in our oceans is plastic. Plastic is one of many pollutants that take decades to decompose and can be harmful to the wildlife that calls the water home. The Recycling Coalition of Utah put out a statistic on how much our bad habits affect our waterways. America alone “throws away 35 billion plastic bottles each year.” They go on to state that with all these bottles we could circle the Earth 4 times. This means that the average person goes through 107 water bottles each year. With this simple solution, we could drastically decrease this number if not bring it down to merely 1 thereby reducing the amount of plastic that enter our rivers and oceans. Reusable water bottles range in price and completely depend on how much you want to spend on them
2. Buying locally
   • Some of you may be thinking- “how can my grocery affect the pollution of our waterways?” It’s quite simple, actually. You see, large farming corporations use extensive amounts of fertilizers to help produce large amounts of vegetation to meet public demand. What happens when the fields have had their fill of fertilizer? The excess finds its way into our waterways when it rains. This outcome can possess a threat to entire ecosystems. When waterways receive large amounts of fertilizer it can deprive the water of oxygen, killing most animals that live there. How does buying local play into all of this? Local farms typical use a more modest amount of fertilizer or support organic farms. These farmers are usually found at local farmers markets, which can be a great social event and an excellent place to buy high-quality foods.
3. Get involved
   • Our waterways don’t have a voice of their own and it’s up to us to be that voice. Don’t support policies that aid industries dumping habits. Invest some time in cleaning your local bodies of water. What may seem minuscule and pointless may be a world of difference for the creatures in your area. If everyone invested just a small portion of their time, the world would be changed for the better.  It’s up to us to be that change. We are the next generation that will ultimately decide the fate of our world. Don’t wait until the last minute. Invest a little now so it will not be a problem in the future.

Recycle ▶ The Facts: Plastic, utahrecycles.org/get-the-facts/the-facts-plastic/.

Research by: Tony Nelson

Using treated wastewater can help conserve water since currently 66% of human usage of water is being wasted. Wastewater treatment is a way to solve water pollution problems and increase cleaner usage of water.

In 2014, in an intent to save money the city of Flint, Michigan switched from purchasing treated Lake Huron water from Detroit to treating water from the Flint River. However, since the treatment of the Flint water was inefficient many of Flint’s residents were exposed to high intakes of lead consumption. In this case, intensive and appropriate water treatment is extremely important to protect humans from consuming harmful chemicals.One of the earliest water pollution policies, the U.S. Clean Water Act (1972) set up regulations to control pollutant levels. As a result of the U.S. Clean Water Act, the wastewater treatment increased from 1992-2009 with percents of 33% to 75% which also helped safe streams increase from 33% to 60%.

The sewage treatment system consists of a primary, secondary, and tertiary process. The primary process starts off with the raw sewage from sewers going through a bar screen and then a primary setting tank where primary solids are transferred to a sludge digester. Next, the remaining wastewater is transferred to an aeration tank with an air pump. Then the water travels to the final settling tank where the rest of the solids are disposed of and advances to the tertiary process. Here, the water arrives at the gravity filters. And finally, the water gets to the Chlorine disinfection tank where the water is cleaned from bacteria and then returned to the river/lake/ocean or the now clean water can be recycled for human use. In the end, the sludge is also put in landfills, put in the ocean, or applied to croplands.

Extra outside information that is more specific on the process:

• Primary treatment consists of temporarily holding the sewage in a quiescent basin where heavy solids can settle to the bottom while oil, grease and lighter solids float to the surface. The settled and floating materials are removed and the remaining liquid may be discharged or subjected to secondary treatment. Some sewage treatment plants that are connected to a combined sewer system have a bypass arrangement after the primary treatment unit. This means that during very heavy rainfall events, the secondary and tertiary treatment systems can be bypassed to protect them from hydraulic overloading, and the mixture of sewage and stormwater only receives primary treatment.
• Secondary treatment removes dissolved and suspended biological matter. Secondary treatment is typically performed by indigenous, water-borne micro-organisms in a managed habitat. Secondary treatment may require a separation process to remove the micro-organisms from the treated water prior to discharge or tertiary treatment.
• Tertiary treatment is sometimes defined as anything more than primary and secondary treatment in order to allow ejection into a highly sensitive or fragile ecosystem (estuaries, low-flow rivers, coral reefs,…). Treated water is disinfected chemically or physically and then returned to the ocean or recycled.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sewage_treatment

Research by: Leslie Andrade