Water Contamination! Drink it? What do I do?

 Public Service Announcement

Contaminated Drinking Water

 What if your drinking water could cause cancer, would you drink your tap water? There are many infectious microorganisms that may be found in drinking water such as bacteria, viruses, protozoans, pesticides, parasites and more. Which you shouldn’t drink because they can make you sick and some can kill you. By the year 2025 half of the earth’s population will be living in water-stressed places. There're at least 2 billion people in the world with their drinking water that is contaminated with feces. Plastics, pesticides and pathogens go into the list of items that are not safe to drink. People’s water that is contaminated can cause diseases such as diarrhea, cholera, dysentery, typhoid, and polio, just to name a few. Waterborne diseases are illnesses caused by the microorganisms in water that haven't been treated. If every single person on this earth had access to safe and clean drinking water these diseases wouldn’t exist. Things that can cause contaminated water are oil pollution, marine dumping, radioactive substances and your sewer lines leaking and getting in the water. All of the things I just told you could be bacteria, diseases, pathogens and more going into the water. The National Primary Drinking Water Regulations (NPDWR) legally apply standards and some ways to treat your water but you can still help. Treating the water by following standards protects the public health by putting a limit on the contaminant levels of your drinking water. High levels of exposure to PFAS could suppress your immune system and raise the risk of being infected with COVID-19. So what can you do to help?

Consequences

Consequences of contaminated drinking water are countless such as you becoming ill or dying from something in your water. Contaminants in Public Water Systems could lead to outbreaks of multiple illnesses, parasitic infections, compromised immune systems leading to multiple diseases. The water pollution will come from chemicals and microorganisms contaminating creeks, streams, rivers, oceans, lakes and other water bodies. Pesticide normally causes damage to your nervous system, that’s what will cause cancer from the carbamates and organophosphates. If your drinking water holds unsafe qualities of contaminants, which can cause health issues including cancer, gastrointestinal sickness, nervous system or reproductive system. There is a sizable importance for water especially drinking water, the average American will drink 1-2 liters of water a day. In the United States of America our water comes from fresh surface waters and groundwater aquifers.

We Can Help

How do we help prevent drinking water pollution? You can help prevent drinking water contamination by raising awareness, spacing your septic and well away from each other, filtering your water, packing out what you pack in when in nature, and making inventive solutions. If you are flushing things down the toilet that should go in the garbage change that habit. Help make sure debris is not going into the water from sidewalks and your driveways by going out and sweeping it up, compost rather than putting items in the garbage to go to the dump. If you live near water, toss out any fats, grease and definitely hygiene products so they don’t clog pipes and tubes and burst contaminating the body of water. There is a solution that people did when they found out about some of the things in the water for example the LifeStraw, they came up with this idea because at first there were thousands maybe even hundreds of thousands of people who got sick with the guinea worm in Africa. In 2020 it went down to 27 human cases of guinea worm. You drink water with guinea worm larvae in it, the larvae becomes a worm inside of your body and then it comes out of your foot as a guinea worm. This would happen almost every time someone drank the water. If you want to help prevent drinking water contamination it will take inventive ideas and many people helping raise awareness and being proactive. 

My solution

My idea to help prevent drinking contaminated water is a filtration water bottle. It will filter out lead, metal, microorganisms, pesticides, protozoans and other contaminants in the water, so that the water is clean and safe to drink without becoming sick. You will be able to use the water bottle to filter your water in your daily life, when you go on camping trips, hiking, and other places that you need to filter your water. The filter will be made of creped paper. The turbidity level of grade 202 of the reeve angel creped paper filter is 62 NTUs (Nephelometric Turbidity Unit).

Meso Paper

Meso paper is something else that filters water into a cup. Meso paper filters out microorganisms, lead, metal and toxins. It uses natural fiber that is biodegradable, you are able to use it multiple times and it is not harmful. It makes it so that there is safe water, filtering out the contamination. Meso paper is made of bamboo fiber and ceramic. Meso paper is safe because it passed the NSF international safety test. The hole size is 40-50 nanometers. Meso Paper will make water that is unhealthy, clean and safe to drink. 

World Water Day!

World Water Day #Water2Me

World water day is on March 22 . There are many ways that we can think about water and how we can appreciate water. I enjoy going to the lake, and going boating because I get to Wakeboard, surf and play on the water. On December 22, 1992 they declared world water day to be on March 22. So ever since 1993 world water day has been on March 22 and that was also the year that world water day started.

My Sources

“Cities with the most contaminated tap water in the US” Aria Bendix Mar. 17, 2020

https://www.businessinsider.com/cities-worst-tap-water-us-2019-3#residents-of-brady-texas-are-worried-about-radium-in-their-water-supply-7

“Across the U.S., millions of people are drinking unsafe water” Lynne Peeples, Great Lakes Now   Sep. 15, 2020

https://www.greatlakesnow.org/2020/09/drinking-unsafe-water-contaminants-solutions/

“Microorganisms that may be found in drinking water” Environmental Health  2021

https://www.mecknc.gov/HealthDepartment/EnvironmentalHealth/GWS/Pages/Learn%20About%20Contaminants.aspx#:~:text=The%20principle%20bacteria%20pathogens%20that,fever%3B%20Shigella%20dysenteriae%2C%20S. 

“Drinking water” World Health Organization  June 14, 2019

https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/drinking-water#:~:text=785%20million%20people%20lack%20even,water%20source%20contaminated%20with%20faeces.

“Waterborne diseases” Lifewater 2021

https://lifewater.org/blog/7-most-common-waterborne-diseases-and-how-to-prevent-them/#:~:text=Waterborne%20diseases%20are%20illnesses%20caused,these%20diseases%20would%20not%20exist.

“National Primary Drinking Water Regulations” EPA  January 5, 2021

https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/national-primary-drinking-water-regulations

“Waterborne diseases and preventing them” CDC April 24, 2019

https://www.cdc.gov/ncezid/dfwed/waterborne/index.html

“Contamination on Public water systems” CDC April 7, 2014

https://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/drinking/public/water_diseases.html

“Contamination affects” EPA  Sep. 11, 2018

https://www.epa.gov/report-environment/drinking-water#:~:text=If%20drinking%20water%20contains%20unsafe,chronic%20diseases%20such%20as%20cancer.

“Guinea worm Information” LifeStraw 

https://www.lifestraw.com/pages/guinea-worm-eradication

“Water pollution” NRDC May 14, 2018

https://www.nrdc.org/stories/water-pollution-everything-you-need-know

"Water filter" Meso Paper 2018

http://mesofilter.com/mesopaper-fact-sheet 

http://mesofilter.com/mesopaper

My Picture

Ildar Sagdejev “Dirty water spilling from a bottle.” Sep. 20, 2008.

Dirty water spilling from a bottle

Here is data from a google form that I did for Sixth Grade to find out information from the people in my grade and what they think. Also to see what they would think of Contaminated water.

By Breanne