What Is Water Pollution?
Water pollution occurs when harmful substances—often chemicals
or microorganisms—contaminate a stream, river, lake, ocean,
aquifer, or other body of water, degrading water quality and
rendering it toxic to humans or the environment.
This widespread problem of water pollution is jeopardizing our
health. Unsafe water kills more people each year than war and all
other forms of violence combined. Meanwhile, our drinkable water
sources are finite: Less than 1 percent of the earth’s freshwater is
actually accessible to us. Without action, the challenges will only
increase by 2050, when global demand for freshwater is expected
to be one-third greater than it is now.
What Are the Causes of Water Pollution?
Water is uniquely vulnerable to pollution. Known as a “universal
solvent,” water is able to dissolve more substances than any other
liquid on earth. It’s the reason we have Kool-Aid and brilliant blue
waterfalls. It’s also why water is so easily polluted. Toxic substances
from farms, towns, and factories readily dissolve into and mix with
it, causing water pollution.
Here are some of the major sources of water pollution worldwide:
Agricultural
Toxic green algae in Copco Reservoir, northern California
Credit:
Aurora Photos/Alamy
Not only is the agricultural sector the biggest consumer of global
freshwater resources, with farming and livestock production using
about 70 percent of the earth’s surface water supplies , but it’s also
a serious water polluter. Around the world, agriculture is the leading
cause of water degradation. In the United States, agricultural
pollution is the top source of contamination in rivers and streams,
the second-biggest source in wetlands, and the third main source in
lakes. It’s also a major contributor of contamination to estuaries and
groundwater. Every time it rains, fertilizers, pesticides, and animal
waste from farms and livestock operations wash nutrients and
pathogens—such bacteria and viruses—into our
waterways. Nutrient pollution, caused by excess nitrogen and
phosphorus in water or air, is the number-one threat to water
quality worldwide and can cause algal blooms, a toxic soup of blue-
green algae that can be harmful to people and wildlife.
Sewage and wastewater
Used water is wastewater. It comes from our sinks, showers, and
toilets (think sewage) and from commercial, industrial, and
agricultural activities (think metals, solvents, and toxic sludge). The
term also includes stormwater runoff, which occurs when rainfall
carries road salts, oil, grease, chemicals, and debris from
impermeable surfaces into our waterways
More than 80 percent of the world’s wastewater flows back into the
environment without being treated or reused, according to the
United Nations; in some least-developed countries, the figure tops
95 percent. In the United States, wastewater treatment facilities
process about 34 billion gallons of wastewater per day . These
facilities reduce the amount of pollutants such as pathogens,
phosphorus, and nitrogen in sewage, as well as heavy metals and
toxic chemicals in industrial waste, before discharging the treated
waters back into waterways. That’s when all goes well. But
according to EPA estimates, our nation’s aging and easily
overwhelmed sewage treatment systems also release more than
850 billion gallons of untreated wastewater each year.
Oil pollution
Big spills may dominate headlines, but consumers account for the
vast majority of oil pollution in our seas, including oil and gasoline
that drips from millions of cars and trucks every day. Moreover,
nearly half of the estimated 1 million tons of oil that makes its way
into marine environments each year comes not from tanker spills
but from land-based sources such as factories, farms, and cities. At
sea, tanker spills account for about 10 percent of the oil in waters
around the world, while regular operations of the shipping industry
—through both legal and illegal discharges—contribute about one-
third. Oil is also naturally released from under the ocean floor
through fractures known as seeps.
Radioactive substances
Radioactive waste is any pollution that emits radiation beyond what
is naturally released by the environment. It’s generated by uranium
mining, nuclear power plants, and the production and testing of
military weapons, as well as by universities and hospitals that use
radioactive materials for research and medicine. Radioactive waste
can persist in the environment for thousands of years, making
disposal a major challenge. Consider the decommissioned Hanford
nuclear weapons production site in Washington, where the cleanup
of 56 million gallons of radioactive waste is expected to cost more
than $100 billion and last through 2060. Accidentally released or
improperly disposed of contaminants threaten groundwater, surface
water, and marine resources.
Categories of Water Pollution
To address pollution and protect water we need to understand
where the pollution is coming from (point source or nonpoint
source) and the type of water body its impacting (groundwater,
surface water, or ocean water).
Where is the pollution coming from?
Point source pollution
When contamination originates from a single source, it’s called
point source pollution. Examples include wastewater (also called
effluent) discharged legally or illegally by a manufacturer, oil
refinery, or wastewater treatment facility, as well as contamination
from leaking septic systems, chemical and oil spills, and illegal
dumping. The EPA regulates point source pollution by establishing
limits on what can be discharged by a facility directly into a body of
water. While point source pollution originates from a specific place,
it can affect miles of waterways and ocean.
Nonpoint source
Nonpoint source pollution is contamination derived from diffuse
sources. These may include agricultural or stormwater runoff or
debris blown into waterways from land. Nonpoint source
pollution is the leading cause of water pollution in U.S. waters, but
it’s difficult to regulate, since there’s no single, identifiable culprit.
Transboundary
It goes without saying that water pollution can’t be contained by a
line on a map. Transboundary pollution is the result of
contaminated water from one country spilling into the waters of
another. Contamination can result from a disaster—like an oil spill—
or the slow, downriver creep of industrial, agricultural, or municipal
discharge.
What type of water is being impacted?
Groundwater pollution
When rain falls and seeps deep into the earth, filling the cracks,
crevices, and porous spaces of an aquifer (basically an underground
storehouse of water), it becomes groundwater—one of our least
visible but most important natural resources. Nearly 40 percent of
Americans rely on groundwater, pumped to the earth’s surface, for
drinking water. For some folks in rural areas, it’s their only
freshwater source. Groundwater gets polluted when contaminants—
from pesticides and fertilizers to waste leached from landfills and
septic systems—make their way into an aquifer, rendering it unsafe
for human use. Ridding groundwater of contaminants can be
difficult to impossible, as well as costly. Once polluted, an aquifer
may be unusable for decades, or even thousands of years.
Groundwater can also spread contamination far from the original
polluting source as it seeps into streams, lakes, and oceans.
Surface water pollution
Covering about 70 percent of the earth, surface water is what fills
our oceans, lakes, rivers, and all those other blue bits on the world
map. Surface water from freshwater sources (that is, from sources
other than the ocean) accounts for more than 60 percent of the
water delivered to American homes. But a significant pool of that
water is in peril. According to the most recent surveys on national
water quality from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, nearly
half of our rivers and streams and more than one-third of our lakes
are polluted and unfit for swimming, fishing, and drinking. Nutrient
pollution, which includes nitrates and phosphates, is the leading
type of contamination in these freshwater sources. While plants and
animals need these nutrients to grow, they have become a major
pollutant due to farm waste and fertilizer runoff. Municipal and
industrial waste discharges contribute their fair share of toxins as
well. There’s also all the random junk that industry and individuals
dump directly into waterways.
Ocean water pollution
Eighty percent of ocean pollution (also called marine pollution)
originates on land—whether along the coast or far inland.
Contaminants such as chemicals, nutrients, and heavy metals are
carried from farms, factories, and cities by streams and rivers into
our bays and estuaries; from there they travel out to sea.
Meanwhile, marine debris—particularly plastic—is blown in by the
wind or washed in via storm drains and sewers. Our seas are also
sometimes spoiled by oil spills and leaks—big and small—and are
consistently soaking up carbon pollution from the air. The ocean
absorbs as much as a quarter of man-made carbon emissions .
What Are the Effects of Water Pollution?
On human health
To put it bluntly: Water pollution kills. In fact, it caused 1.8 million
deaths in 2015, according to a study published in The Lancet.
Contaminated water can also make you ill. Every year, unsafe water
sickens about 1 billion people. And low-income communities are
disproportionately at risk because their homes are often closest to
the most polluting industries.
Waterborne pathogens, in the form of disease-causing bacteria and
viruses from human and animal waste, are a major cause of illness
from contaminated drinking water . Diseases spread by unsafe water
include cholera, giardia, and typhoid. Even in wealthy nations,
accidental or illegal releases from sewage treatment facilities, as
well as runoff from farms and urban areas, contribute harmful
pathogens to waterways. Thousands of people across the United
States are sickened every year by Legionnaires’ disease (a severe
form of pneumonia contracted from water sources like cooling
towers and piped water), with cases cropping up from California’s
Disneyland to Manhattan’s Upper East Side.
A woman using bottled water to wash her three-week-old son at
their home in Flint, Michigan
Credit:
Todd McInturf/The Detroit News/AP
Meanwhile, the plight of residents in Flint, Michigan —where cost-
cutting measures and aging water infrastructure created a lead
contamination crisis—offers a stark look at how dangerous chemical
and other industrial pollutants in our water can be. The problem
goes far beyond Flint and involves much more than lead, as a wide
range of chemical pollutants—from heavy metals such as arsenic
and mercury to pesticides and nitrate fertilizers—are getting into
our water supplies. Once they’re ingested, these toxins can cause a
host of health issues, from cancer to hormone disruption to altered
brain function. Children and pregnant women are particularly at
risk.
Even swimming can pose a risk. Every year, 3.5 million Americans
contract health issues such as skin rashes, pinkeye, respiratory
infections, and hepatitis from sewage-laden coastal waters,
according to EPA estimates.
On the environment
In order to thrive, healthy ecosystems rely on a complex web of
animals, plants, bacteria, and fungi—all of which interact, directly or
indirectly, with each other. Harm to any of these organisms can
create a chain effect, imperiling entire aquatic environments.
When water pollution causes an algal bloom in a lake or marine
environment, the proliferation of newly introduced nutrients
stimulates plant and algae growth, which in turn reduces oxygen
levels in the water. This dearth of oxygen, known as eutrophication,
suffocates plants and animals and can create “dead zones,” where
waters are essentially devoid of life. In certain cases, these harmful
algal blooms can also produce neurotoxins that affect wildlife, from
whales to sea turtles.
Chemicals and heavy metals from industrial and municipal
wastewater contaminate waterways as well. These contaminants
are toxic to aquatic life—most often reducing an organism’s life
span and ability to reproduce—and make their way up the food
chain as predator eats prey. That’s how tuna and other big fish
accumulate high quantities of toxins, such as mercury.
Marine ecosystems are also threatened by marine debris, which can
strangle, suffocate, and starve animals. Much of this solid debris,
such as plastic bags and soda cans, gets swept into sewers and
storm drains and eventually out to sea, turning our oceans into
trash soup and sometimes consolidating to form floating garbage
patches. Discarded fishing gear and other types of debris are
responsible for harming more than 200 different species of marine
life.
Meanwhile, ocean acidification is making it tougher for shellfish and
coral to survive. Though they absorb about a quarter of the carbon
pollution created each year by burning fossil fuels, oceans are
becoming more acidic. This process makes it harder for shellfish
and other species to build shells and may impact the nervous
systems of sharks, clownfish, and other marine life.
What Can You Do to Prevent Water Pollution?
With your actions
We’re all accountable to some degree for today’s water pollution
problem. Fortunately, there are some simple ways you can prevent
water contamination or at least limit your contribution to it:
Learn about the unique qualities of water where you live.
Where does your water come from? Is the wastewater from
your home treated? Where does stormwater flow to? Is your
area in a drought? Start building a picture of the situation so
you can discover where your actions will have the most impact
—and see if your neighbors would be interested in joining in!
Reduce your plastic consumption and reuse or recycle plastic
when you can.
Properly dispose of chemical cleaners, oils, and
nonbiodegradable items to keep them from going down the
drain.
Maintain your car so it doesn’t leak oil, antifreeze, or coolant.
If you have a yard, consider landscaping that reduces
runoff and avoid applying pesticides and herbicides .
Don’t flush your old medications! Dispose of them in the trash
to prevent them from entering local waterways.
Be mindful of anything you pour into storm sewers, since that
waste often won’t be treated before being released into local
waterways. If you notice a storm sewer blocked by litter, clean
it up to keep that trash out of the water. (You’ll also help
prevent troublesome street floods in a heavy storm.)
If you have a pup, be sure to pick up its poop.
With your voice
One of the most effective ways to stand up for our waters is to
speak out in support of the Clean Water Act, which has helped hold
polluters accountable for five decades—despite attempts by
destructive industries to gut its authority. But we also need
regulations that keep pace with modern-day challenges, including
microplastics, PFAS, pharmaceuticals, and other contaminants our
wastewater treatment plants weren’t built to handle, not to mention
polluted water that’s dumped untreated.
Tell the federal government, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,
and your local elected officials that you support water protections
and investments in infrastructure, like wastewater treatment, lead-
pipe removal programs, and stormwater-abating green
infrastructure. Also, learn how you and those around you can get
involved in the policymaking process . Our public waterways serve
every one of us. We should all have a say in how they’re protected.
This story was originally published on May 14, 2018, and has been
updated with new information and links.
