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Water And Air Pollution

Water and Air Pollution Plan
According to the peer material provided for review entitled “Water and Air Pollution Analysis” dated September 19, 2007, among the main environmental problems of Arkansas is water pollution. The paper stated that polluted water caused people to be sick, obliging them to file a lawsuit against several big poultry farms believed to have caused the problem brought about by chicken waste. This hints at the problem of ground water contamination. The paper also said that because of the proliferation of chicken farms in the area, chicken waste is being widely used as fertilizers by farms, resulting to agricultural runoff which pollutes their streams and rivers. Elsewhere in the paper, the author also claimed that the agricultural runoff which is being conveyed by White River to the Mississippi River “leads to algae blooms that take oxygen from the water and kills fish.” This is a case of surface water pollution. The leading environmental issue in Arkansas, therefore, is ground water and surface water pollution from agricultural runoff.
The chicken waste being used as fertilizer contains harmful elements which seeps through the layers of soil and contaminate the sources of ground water. According to information released by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), chicken waste contains a combination of fungus, bacteria, and arsenic. Arsenic is found in chicken waste because “organic arsenic compounds are extensively added to poultry feed to enhance growth.” Therefore, if the chicks grow rapidly, the profit of the poultry company is increased. According to the EPA, “the most common arsenical poultry feed is Roxarsone [and ] by design, most of the arsenic, which is number one on the EPAs toxic substance list, is excreted in the manure of the chicken.” (Lundy & Davis, 2003) In other words, if this organic arsenic manages to seep through the layers of soil, it could easily contaminate the groundwater which is the source of the people’s...