What's in Your Water?

                      What's in Your Water?
           

Summer is coming and many of us are going to start heading for our local lakes and river to have some fun in the sun, but have you ever thought about what is in your local recreational water source? Since we are learning about factory runoff I have also learned about algal blooms, which are the result of the excess nutrients that can originate from fertilizers that farms are using. These fertilizers that farms are using contain phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium in large amounts. These seem like extremely harmful chemicals to be swimming in don’t you think.  These chemicals seemed to be used in excess so when it rains these chemicals are washed away into our ecosystem. These chemicals then are washed into our lakes, stream, and oceans. When phosphates enter into a water system in a high concentration it causes increased growth in algae plants. What is so crazy is that the algae grows so quickly but is also short lived with the high concentrations so if dies off quickly leaving behind a dead organic matter which then in turn starts to decay. When this happens the decay starts to consume the oxygen in the water resulting in hypoxic conditions this then kills off fish, plants, and animal in the water. This can result in the shutdown of local lakes and rivers because they become so toxic to everyone and everything that comes in contact with them. So my concern is how can we as a community come up with some ideas to prevent these toxins from continuing to pollute our lakes and streams.What can you do as an individual?

 Do you really want to swim in this?