APES 8

8.1: POINT AND NONPOINT POLLUTION SOURCES

Point source: pollutant that enters the environment from an easily identified and confined place

Nonpoint source: pollutants entering the environment from many places at once; difficult to Point to one individual source

Examples of Point source pollutants: animal waste runoff from a CAFO (ammonia, fecal coliform bacteria), emissions from smokestack of a coal power plant (CO2, NOx, SO2, PM), BP oil spill (hydrocarbons, benzene)

Examples of nonpoint source pollutants: urban runoff (motor oil, nitrate fertilizer, road salt, sediment), pesticides sprayed on agricultural fields; carried by wind and washed off large agricultural regions into bodies of water

What areas are primarily polluted by nonpoint sources from the large watersheds that empty into them: estuaries and bays