Environmental Paper
Lauren Wojciechowicz
Problems in Philosophy
Environmental Paper
May 8, 2006
If the water contamination problems that we are facing in Bucks County continue to grow in severity, will we be left without any clean water? The human body is made up of nearly 70% of water. It depends on the water content to regulate body temperature, help remove waste, cushion the joints, and transport nutrients and oxygen to billions of cells. Without water humans wouldn't be able to survive.
In Bucks County we face many environmental problems. We need a flood mitigation plan to avoid damage done to the county every time the Delaware River floods, we also have a growing problem with water contamination, our air quality is among the worst in the nation, we need a plan to preserve what open space we have left, and littering and vandalism continue to thrive.
We need clean water to drink, bathe, water our yards, wash our vehicles, and to put out fires, making water contamination an urgent threat facing our community today. A threat to our water supply is very serious because the effects caused can be deadly. When toxins get into water supplies they can cause nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. There are toxins that do not exhibit symptoms right away. They can take years to show negative affects, some can even cause cancer.
The use of methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) by gasoline companies is rapidly declining, but detections of MTBE in water supplies are soaring. The number of water systems that discovered the contamination in tap water supplies increased more than fifteen times between 1996 and 2004, and the number of states reporting problems has more than doubled according to EWG Action Fund's analysis of state water testing data. The total number of contaminated systems includes private water supplies that may serve only a single customer, but more than 60 percent supply drinking water to cities, counties, rural...
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