Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
with Hangley Aronchick Segal & Pudlin. He's also general counsel
for the Delaware River Basin Commission, which manages water
resources for approximately 15 million people who count on the
Delaware River and its tributaries for their water supply. Numerous
streams, in addition to those that drain into the Chesapeake, con-
tain excess nutrients, he adds.
Nonetheless, from a recent historical perspective, the overall
water quality of U.S. rivers has improved. “There's no doubt we're
far better off today than thirty years ago,” says hydrologist Waldrop,
who has been studying water and environmental quality issues
since the early 1970s. For example, he recalls the now-infamous
fi re on the pollution-choked Cuyahoga River in Cleveland, Ohio, in
1969. Things like that used to be regular occurrences, he says, but
today the really bad culprits have been cleaned up.
Waldrop agrees that the water quality issue that has not been
addressed is the nonpoint source pollution from things like agri-
cultural and urban runoff. “Most of your water treatment plants
don't treat for the chemicals we spray on our fi elds, the medi-
cines people fl ush down the toilets, or the antifreeze that leaks
out of our cars.”
People are beginning to realize, too, that airborne pollution
contributes to water pollution. “If something goes up a [smoke]
stack, it gets into the atmosphere and eventually comes back to
Earth and ends up in the water,” Waldrop adds. “We're fi nding
traces of certain combustion products from things like power plants
in water supplies, and they didn't get there by a discharge. It's defi -
nitely an airborne transport of pollution.”
GEOGRAPHY, GEOLOGY, AND WATER LAWS
The sites in the water quality selenium study mentioned earlier
were selected in part because of their climate and high probability
of irrigation-related contamination. Geology, especially the type of
rock involved, as well as topography, also fi gured into the picture.
Geography and geology affect the amount as well as the purity
of water supplies in many areas. It's not only a matter of keep-
ing underground aquifers brimming. As occurs with selenium
