Chapter 18 Questions for Review
1.) Water pollution is any physical, biological, or chemical change in water quality that adversely affects living organisms or makes water unsuitable for desired uses can be considered pollution.
2.) Eight major categories of water pollutants are infectious agents(bacteria, viruses), organic chemicals (pesticides, plastics), inorganic chemicals (acids, caustics), radioactive materials production (uranium, thorium), sediment (soil, silt), plant nutrients (nitrates, phosphates), oxygen demanding wastes (animal manure and plant residues), and thermal (heat).
3.) Sources for water pollution are human and animal excreta, industrial, farm and house use, industrial effluents, mining and processing of ores, power plants and weapons, land erosion, agricultural and urban fertilizers, paper mills, and industrial cooling.
4.) Pfiesteria is an extraordinarily poisonous dinoflagellate that only recently has been recognized as a killer of finfish and shellfish in polluted rivers and estuaries such as North Carolina’s Pamlico Sound. Under the right conditions, a population explosion can produce a dense bloom of these cells.
5.) Eutrophication is the increase in biological productivity and ecosystem succession caused by human activities.
6.) The origins of siltation are the runoff of sediment that build up and block normal flow of water. It is a literal roadblock for many natural processes.
7.) Primary treatment removes, strains, and settles out solids. Secondary treatment, including aeration, digestion, and chlorination, removes pathogens and organic material. Tertiary treatment removes inorganic nutrients and oxidizes remaining organics.
8.) Combining storm and sewer system is a problem because waste will be introduced into the environment condensed and will deteriorate that area rapidly; if these wastes are put through a treatment facility, clean water that is from the storm pipes will be cleaned, that means unnecessary energy was used. Whereas it is also a problem that they be separated, the amount of pipes for this digs into the natural environment twice as much as before.
9.) The Clean Water Act works to get specific “point” sources of pollution such as industrial discharge pipes or sewage outfalls, the act requires discharge permits and best practicable control technology.
10.) End to all dumping of industrial wastes, plastic trash and tank washing effluents into the ocean, designation of places to put toxic substances. Also the rules are to be tightened, they have been too lax.
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