ŠiStockphoto.com/luoman
READ MORE ABOUT:
Water may be the source of life, but when it is used as a garbage dump, open sewer system, or is polluted in other ways, it loses its ability to provide for all forms of it. Yet that is exactly what is happening across the world, from Indonesia's River Citarum to the Pacific Ocean to small-scale lakes and creeks in New York State.
Indonesia has experienced rapid urbanization over the last 20 years, but has not built the infrastructure necessary to treat the accompanying increase in sewage and other waste output. The result has been a deluge of pollution in a river that used to support a fishing culture and is now a site where people forage for trash. Last year, the Asian Development Bank announced a $500 million loan to support a massive government effort to restore the river. The initiative will include sanitation projects and waste treatment plants to provide safe water for families who depend on the river for fishing and bathing, and will also aim to address water shortages by supplying water to an additional 200,000 homes in Jakarta.
Hop to the other side of the Pacific Ocean, and the problem becomes less about sewage and more about solid waste. Yes, a floating landfill larger than the state of Texas sits about a thousand miles off the coast of California, filled with plastic and other debris that have been trapped by the ocean's currents. About 20 percent of the debris is estimated to come from ships at sea and the remaining 80 percent from land, and reaches the patch from North America's west coast in about five years. From the east coast of Asia, it can take less than a year.
But large as the patch is, more problematic than the size is that once there, the debris breaks down?into pieces small enough to float just below the surface of the water, make a soupy plastic-seawater concoction, and be mistaken for food by seabirds, who swoop down and eat it, as well as marine life. Rusty Brainard from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said that seabirds have been found washed up on island shores with their guts "just filled with plastic." And of course, as larger animals eat smaller ones, the plastic eventually reaches the entire food chain, humans included.
Continue moving east, all the way to New York, to Brooklyn's Newtown Creek and the Onondaga Lake in upstate Syracuse, both Superfund sites. Pollution in the Newtown Creek is the result of years of industrial activity in the late 1800s, when more than 50 refineries sat on its banks and commanded large, commercial vessels to bring raw materials in, and take oil, chemicals, and metals out. The city's decision to start dumping raw sewage into the creek in 1856 certainly didn't help matters; nor did the 1919 fire at a Standard Oil refinery (Standard Oil is now Exxon) that caused 110 million gallons of oil to be dumped. The sewage, industrial pollution, and countless other spills over the years?including the one twice the size of Exxon Valdez?have left the Newtown Creek one of the most polluted waterways in the country. Neighborhood activists, including Riverkeeper, are waging a fierce battle to clean it up, but they have a long way to go, especially since Exxon has so far been holding out on its share of the responsibility.
The Onondaga Lake, meanwhile, was banned as a public fishing site in 1970 because of the severe pollution levels. The 4.5-square mile lake for years was the site for industrial processing plants and municipal wastewater treatment plants to discharge their wastes, and still is for the Metropolitan Syracuse Sewage Treatment Plant. The lake is rich in salt and limestone, which attracted the Solvay Process Company, a predecessor to today's Honeywell International, Inc., as a site for soda ash production. Eventually, with the growth of other industrial processes, mercury, other heavy metals, and volatile organic compounds began to be discharged into the lake as well.
Some improvements have been made?the lake began permitting catch-and-release fishing in 1986?but there is still a long way to go. Good thing there are things you can do to help.
Watch videos from this episode:
Dive into Blue August for more on ocean and water issues.
Learn more about our waterways, how they've been damaged and who's doing what to clean them up:
Focus Earth: Troubled Waters
Score for the Oceans: Surfer Becomes an Activist
Red Snapper Populations in Trouble, Simple Fishing Regulations Can Help
Riverkeeper Protects Hudson River and Works to Improve New York City's Drinking Water
