Water Quality Control and Standards
What exactly is water quality? Simply put water quality is the biological and chemical make up or characteristics of water. The most common standards you may hear about when dealing with water quality relate to that of drinking water, safety of human consumption or contact, and for the health of our ecosystems.
What standards must be met by our nations water quality systems? First it must be decided on how a body of water will be used. Different uses cause different concerns, so therefore different standards will obviously need to be considered. Who decides these standards, and concerns?
Environmental scientists work in an effort to understand how each system works or functions and determines where a waters source is coming from allowing them to discover any contaminates. Environmental lawyers work to ensure that water is maintained at the correct quality for its purpose or identified use.
Most water on the earth is not suitable for consumption, potable or even toxic. This is not even including sea water. Earths polution plays a major role in water pollution, turning potable or drinking water into polluted water. Water quality is very complex and is tied directly into the earths ecology.
Pollution as mentioned above plays a large role in keeping large amounts of our earths surface water from being consumable by humans. Industrial pollution, storm water runoff, runoff from agricultural areas and the discharge or sewage are hurting our earths resources for good clean drinking water. In an attempt to conserve water, many people are now turning to rainwater harvesting and catching access rainwater in rain barrels. This small attempt to conserve water can actually help cut your homes landscaping and lawn water usage by 30%.
We see on a growing basis that water quality is often not up to standards for human consumption. This can be caused from bacteria and micro organisms, chemical spills, sewage runoffs or spills, and pesticides causing many people to have to boil their water before they can drink it. With such a growth in our nations population, it is no wonder why water quality is such a big issue today, and will continue to grow.
Here in the United States our water quality standards are set forth by state agencies for different types of water bodies and their locations. As part of the Clean Water Act, each jurisdiction must submit reports of water quality in their area, whether it be state, tribal entities, or territories. This clean water act or CWA insures that everyone in the US is ensured clean drinking water.
Do your part to cut back on pollution, trash, and waste. Help keep the earth clean, keeping runoff, oil, and sewage out of our drinking water. Take part in world water monitoring day, that is an international education that outreaches to help build public awareness and stimulate involvement to help protect our water recources, not only here in the United States, but around the world.
