Aquatic and Terrestrial Pollution

Aquatic and Terrestrial Pollution Laws

  • Environmental Justice:

    • Fair treatment and involvement of all people, regardless of race, color, origin, or income.

    • Addresses environmental discrimination (racism) where low-income or minority communities are near hazardous environments.

  • Not In My Back Yard (NIMBY):

    • Opposition to civic projects in neighborhoods due to concerns about safety, appearance, or property values.

Clean Water Act

  • Regulates pollutant discharge into surface waters (lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal areas).

  • Does not protect groundwater.

  • EPA sets water quality criteria and allowable chemical pollutant levels.

  • EPA and states issue permits to control industrial pollution discharge.

  • Clean Water Act of 1972:

    • Response to the 1969 Cuyahoga River fire in Cleveland.

Fracking

  • Involves injecting water and chemicals at high pressure to extract natural gas/oil.

  • Increases domestic fuel supplies and displaces coal in electricity generation.

  • Concerns:

    • oo9Contaminated drinking water.

    • Increased air pollution.

    • Toxic waste disposal.

    • Impaired rivers/streams.

    • Habitat destruction.

  • Exempted from Safe Drinking Water Act unless diesel is used.

Safe Drinking Water Act

  • Sets national standards for safe drinking water.

  • Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL):

    • EPA standard for 77 elements/substances in surface and groundwater.

Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA)

  • Regulates storage, transportation, treatment, and disposal of solid and hazardous wastes.

  • Emphasizes release prevention through management standards.

  • Manages hazardous waste from "cradle to grave".

  • Pollution prevention is key for groundwater protection.

    • Cleanup is costly and time-consuming.

Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) (Superfund)

  • Regulates cleanup of abandoned waste sites contaminating soil/groundwater.

  • Amended in 1986 to allow citizens to sue violators.

  • National Priorities List:

    • List of hazardous waste sites eligible for Superfund cleanup.

    • 1335 sites listed as of April 2020.

    • 424 sites deleted as of April 2020.

Sources of Pollution

  • Water pollution:

    • Changes water quality, harming organisms or making it unfit for human use.

    • Contamination with chemicals or excessive heat.

Types of Pollution

  • Point-source pollution:

    • Single, identifiable source.

    • Easy to identify, monitor, and regulate.

    • Examples: smokestack, waste discharge pipe.

  • Nonpoint-source pollution:

    • Broad, diffuse areas.

    • Difficult to identify and control.

    • Expensive to clean up.

    • Examples: pesticide spraying, urban runoff.

Major Water Pollutants

  • Infectious agents (pathogens):

    • Cause diseases (e.g., bacteria, viruses).

    • Source: human and animal wastes.

  • Oxygen-demanding wastes:

    • Deplete dissolved oxygen.

    • Source: sewage, animal feedlots.

  • Plant nutrients:

    • Cause excessive algae growth.

    • Source: sewage, fertilizers.

  • Organic chemicals:

    • Add toxins to water.

    • Source: industry, farms, households.

  • Inorganic chemicals:

    • Add toxins to water.

    • Source: industry, households, mining.

  • Sediments:

    • Disrupt photosynthesis and food webs.

    • Source: land erosion.

  • Heavy metals:

    • Cause cancer, disrupt systems.

    • Source: landfills, mining, industry.

  • Thermal:

    • Heat.

    • Source: power plants.

Chesapeake Bay

  • Largest U.S. estuary; polluted since 1960.

  • Increased population and sources raised pollution.

  • High phosphate and nitrate levels and sediments.

  • Oysters, a keystone species, greatly reduced.

  • Chesapeake Bay Program (1983):

    • Integrated coastal management (local, state, federal).

Pollutants and Range of Tolerance

  • Organisms have an optimum range for abiotic factors (temperature, pH).

  • Outside this range, organisms experience stress, reduced growth, and death.

pH Changes

  • pH changes impact biological/ecological systems.

  • Affects survival and diversity of aquatic organisms.

Indicator Species

  • Used to indicate polluted waters.

  • Unpolluted water has greater diversity.

  • Polluted water has larger numbers of tolerant organisms and less diversity.

Macroinvertebrates

  • Assess stream quality and are sensitive to environmental conditions.

  • They live on the bottom and cannot easily move away from pollution.

  • Different species react differently to environmental stressors.

Coral Reef Damage

  • Increasing temperature causes thermal stress and bleaching.

  • Sediment runoff from construction and mining smothers corals.

  • Destructive fishing practices and overfishing disrupt the ecosystem.

  • Pollution from waste, sewage, and agrochemicals causes algal blooms.

Oil Spills

  • Petroleum products are toxic to marine organisms.

  • Sources: natural seeps, extraction, transport, and consumption.

  • Oil coats feathers of birds and fur of marine mammals.

  • Economic consequences: closed fishing areas, damaged boats, restricted recreation.

History's Worst Oil Spills

  • Examples: Gulf of Mexico, Ixtoc I, Amoco Cadiz, Deepwater Horizon, Exxon Valdez.

Remediating Oil Pollution

  • Containment:

    • Booms and oil vacuums.

  • Chemicals:

    • Dispersants break up oil, but are toxic.

  • Bacteria:

    • Consume oil; genetic engineering for faster consumption.

Oceanic Dead Zones

  • Areas of low oxygen due to increased nutrient pollution.

Biochemical Oxygen Demand (BOD)

  • Amount of oxygen consumed by microbes decomposing organic matter.

  • High BOD indicates high pollutant levels.

  • Low BOD indicates low pollutant levels.

Oxygen Sag Curve

  • Plot of dissolved oxygen levels vs. distance from a pollution source.

Heavy Metals

  • From industry, mining, and fossil fuels.

  • Can reach groundwater, impacting drinking water.

Methylmercury

  • Toxic compound formed from mercury by bacteria in water.

  • Accumulates in fish and shellfish.

Litter

  • Can cause intestinal blockage and choking hazards for wildlife.

  • Introduces toxic substances to the food chain.

Increased Sediment

  • Reduces light infiltration, affecting producers and visual predators.

  • Disrupts habitats and clogs gills.

  • Turbidity: cloudiness caused by suspended sediments.

Wetlands and Mangroves

  • Wetlands:

    • Areas covered by water, supporting aquatic plants adapted to hydric soil.

    • Ecological services: water purification, storm damage reduction, flood control, habitat, productivity.

  • Mangrove Forest:

    • Trees/shrubs in coastal intertidal zones.

    • Stabilize coastlines and provide habitat.

  • Threats:

    • Cleared for agriculture, development, aquaculture.

    • Overharvested for firewood and construction.

    • River changes due to dams.

    • Overfishing, pollution, climate change, and rising sea levels.

Florida Everglades Restoration

  • Damage in the 20th century (drained, diverted, paved).

  • 1990: Comprehensive Everglades Restoration Plan (CERP).

    • Restore river flow, remove canals, create marshes and reservoirs, recapture water.

Eutrophication

  • Nutrient enrichment of water bodies.

  • Oligotrophic lake: low nutrients, clear water.

  • Cultural/Anthropogenic eutrophication: accelerated nutrient addition from runoff and wastewater.

Eutrophication Process (Positive Feedback)

  • Elevated nutrients increase algae growth (algal bloom).

  • Algae die, microbes decompose them, using oxygen.

  • Decreased oxygen leads to death of aquatic organisms.

Hypoxic Waterways (Dead Zones)

  • Areas with extremely low dissolved oxygen levels.

Cultural Eutrophication

  • Severe cultural eutrophication has covered this lake near the Chinese city of Haozhou with algae.

Effects of Nutrients in the Bay

  • Excess levels of nutrients. Bacteria feed on dead algae. Dissolved oxygen levels are decreased.

Prevent or Reduce Cultural Eutrophication

  • Remove nitrates and phosphates through waste treatment systems.

    • Ban/limit use of phosphate containing detergents/cleaning agents.

  • Employ soil conservation and land use control to reduce nutrient runoff.

    • Clean up lakes. Remove excess weeds mechanically. Use herbicides/algaecides.

Thermal Pollution

  • Nonchemical water pollution caused by temperature change due to human activities.

  • Variations in water temperature affect dissolved oxygen levels and can cause thermal shock.

Endocrine Disruptors

  • Chemicals that interfere with the endocrine system.

  • Found in many everyday products (plastics, detergents, cosmetics).

  • Can lead to birth defects, developmental disorders, and gender imbalances.

Examples of Endocrine Disruptors

  • Bisphenol A (BPA).

  • Dioxins.

  • Perchlorate.

  • Phthalates.

  • Phytoestrogens.

  • Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE).

  • Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB).

  • Triclosan.

Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)

  • Chemicals that do not easily break down.

  • Can travel long distances.

  • Toxic and accumulate in fatty tissues.

Exposure to certain POPs can cause various effects:

  • Greater susceptibility to disease

    • Contaminated breast milk

  • Damage to the immune, neurological, and reproductive systems

    • Endocrine disruption

Commonly Encountered POPs

  • Pesticides (DDT).

  • Industrial chemicals (PCBs).

  • Mercury.

DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane)

  • Used in WWII to protect soldiers from diseases spread by insects.

  • Persistence: as much as 50% can remain in the soil 10-15 years after application.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB)

  • Used in industry as heat exchange fluids, in electric transformers and capacitors, and as additives in paint, carbonless copy paper, and plastics.

  • Persistence in the environment: half-lives can vary from 10 days to one-and-a-half years

Sources and Transport of PCBs

  • PCBs and other persistent toxic chemicals can move through the living and nonliving environment on a number of pathways.

Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification

  • Bioaccumulation:

    • Selective absorption and concentration of elements or compounds in cells.

  • Biomagnification:

    • Increase in concentration of substances per unit of body tissue as it moves successively higher trophic levels of the food chain.

Pesticides and DDT

  • Pesticides serve an important role in helping to control pest organisms that

  • pose a threat to crop production and human health.

  • can have unintended impacts on other pests as well as on many

  • non-pest species.

Mercury

  • Occurs naturally and through human activity

  • Primarily burning coal.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

  • Group of industrial compounds

  • Used in electrical equipment, heat transfer equipment, hydraulic equipment, plasticizers, plastics, rubber, pigments, dyes, flame retardants, adhesives, pesticide extenders, surface coatings, wire insulators, metal ings and carbonless copy paper

  • Manufacture of PCBs was stopped in the U.S. in 1977 because of evidence they build up in the environment and can cause harmful health effects.

Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)

  • Used as flame retardants in a wide variety of products, including plastics, furniture, upholstery, electrical equipment, electronic devices, textiles and other household products

Lethal Dose 50% (LD50)

  • Dose of a chemical that is lethal to 50% of the population of a particular species

Dose Response Curve

  • Dose-response relationship attempts to estimate the probability of illness upon exposure to a hazard

  • essential concept in toxicology

  • Dose response curve describes the effect on an

  • organism or mortality rate in a population based on the dose of a particular toxin or drug.

Pollution and Human Health

  • It can be difficult to establish a cause

  • and effect between pollutants and

  • human health issues because humans

  • experience exposure to a variety of

  • chemicals and pollutants.

Pathogens

  • biological agent that causes disease or illness to its host

Climate Change and Disease

  • Equatorial-type climate zones shift north and south into what are

  • currently subtropical and temperate climate zones due to climate change

Facts About the World Water Crisis

  • 748 million people around the world are without basic water access. That’s more than twice the population of the United States.

Common Diseases Transmitted to Humans through Contaminated Drinking Water

  • Typhoid fever

  • Cholera

  • Bacterial dysentery

Solid waste includes

  • any discarded material that is not a liquid or gas.

  • generated in domestic, industrial, business, agricultural sectors

  • most often disposed of in landfills

Landfills

  • Leachate - formed when rain water filters through wastes placed in a landfill.

    • Bacteria break down the trash in the absence of oxygen (anaerobic) (landfill is airtight)

A state-of-the-art sanitary landfill

  • Since 1997, only modern sanitary landfills have been permitted in the United States.

A preventive approach to managing this waste would be to

  • double the average lifetime of tires in order to reduce the number thrown away each year.

Where Do Dead Tires Go?

  • 26% Ground into filler for asphalt and insulation.

    • 11% Dumped into landfills, where a tire takes hundreds of years to decompose.

Coal ash and coal slag as solid waste

  • typically dumped in landfills, ponds or abandoned mines

  • Contains arsenic, mercury, lead

Waste disposal in the Ocean

  • According to a 2015 study in the journal Science the top 6 countries for ocean garbage:

    • China

    • Indonesia

    • Philippines

    • Vietnam

    • Sri Lanka

    • Thailand

What’s a smartphone made of?

  • Electronic waste, or e-waste, is composed of discarded electronic devices including televisions, cell phones, and computers.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

  • Integrated waste management

    • Reuse

    • Source reduction

    • Recycling

    • Composting

Compost

  • process of decomposition of organic matter-- such as food scraps, paper, and yard waste

  • Benefits:

    • Enriches soil

    • Reduces need for chemical fertilizers

Methane Capture to Produce Energy

  • Methane emissions from landfills -- third-largest source of human-related methane

Burning Waste for Energy

  • Waste-to-energy plants produce steam in a boiler to generate electricity

Reducing Landfill Waste

  • Less waste in landfills reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 1,220,000 tons of CO2. That’s like taking 236,000 passenger vehicles off the road for one year.

A modern waste-to-energy incinerator with pollution controls

  • burns mixed solid wastes and recovers some of the energy to produce steam to use for heating or producing electricity.

Core Case Study: E-waste

  • Should be E-cycled by Reusing and preventing toxic material

Life Cycle approach:

  • The cradle to the grave approach

C2 Management: Responsible E-Waste Disposition

  • C2 stands for cradle-to-cradle and reflects our goals to become a leader in the asset recovery and electronics recycling industries.

Wastewater

  • Wastewater – untreated liquid containing domestic sewage and industrial waste.

  • Humans and Contaminated Drinking Water

Fecal Coliform Bacteria

  • common specie is: Escherichia coli (E. coli)

  • Raw sewage may contain several million colonies

Septic System: A Relatively Small and Simple Sewage Treatment System

  • Made up of a septic tank and a leach field, often used for homes in rural areas.

  • Sludge- Solid waste material from wastewater.

  • Septage- A layer of fairly clear water found in the middle of a septic tank.

  • Leach field- Component of a septic system, made up of underground pipes laid out below the surface of the ground.

  • Moves through a pipe at the top Of tank and passes through perforated pipes that distribute the water through a leach field.

Sewage Treatment Plant

  • Removes pollutants

  • Primary treatment – Physical

  • Secondary treatment – Biological

  • Tertiary Treatment – Chemical

Legal Sewage Dumping?

  • During periods of heavy rains the combined volume of storm water and wastewater overwhelms the capacity of the plants.