Water Pollution

I recently did a glog on legacy pollutants, with an emphasis on PCBs. (you can see it at http://s6aars4.edu.glogster.com/legacy-pollutants/ ) The basic definition of a legacy pollutant is a pollutants that is very stable, therefore it is very difficult to get out of the environment. PCBs are a family of more dangerous legacy pollutants.
While PCBs were banned in the seventies, they remain in the environment, often in bodies of water, such as rivers, lakes, and ponds. While there are options to get them out of these bodies of water, most of said options are expensive and time-consuming. Therefore, the first step to getting PCBs and legacy pollutants out of the environment is to make the opportunities to get them out of the environment (more specifically the hydrosphere, or all water on the planet) more available. If it was not such a hurdle to remove legacy pollutants, there would be less chance of legacy pollutants in a certain area.
The next step to remove legacy pollutants is to raise awareness. This would get communities more involved in the problems in their local water supply. Currently, the problem of PCBs in varying water sources across the country is being taken on almost solely by universities. There are some nonprofit groups that are working for changes in the system, but the EPA is virtually powerless in the world of water pollutants, and in my opinion this is mainly due to lobbyists trying to maintain their political goals. On Earth Day in 1970, during President Nixon's term, there were countrywide protests against the problems with the environment. These protests prompted the founding of the EPA and the Clean Water Act of 1972. Over the years, the EPA has grown weaker and has lost some of it's control over the biggest polluters.
PCBs and legacy pollutants are serious problems. In Puget Sound, PCBs are causing problems with the Orcas that live there. The PCBs stay in the sediment at the bottom of the bay, where they are eaten by microorganisms, which are eaten by small fish, to the large fish, to the orcas, where they cause problems, such as weakness, disease, and more premature deaths than is normal.

Water Conservation

Among Earth's limited resources, water is one of the most valuable. Two Hydrogen (hydro- from the latin word for water, -gen: to produce or form) atoms with a single oxygen (oxy-: sharp, or acidic, -gen: see above) atom, only 3% of all Earth's water is freshwater, and most of that 3% is in polar ice caps and glaciers. All in all, less than 1% of Earth's water is viable. Yet even with efforts in recent years, water distribution is highly uneven. The average American per capita of water is 151 gallons of water a day, where an average sub-saharan African per capita of water is 5 gallons a day.
The water conservation movement has gained some momentum in the past few years, but most are rather unaware of the purpose of water conservation. Water conservation is just that. Conserving water for future use. Some of the main ways to conserve water that are the also some of the easiest. Taking shorter showers, turning off faucets completely, washing only full loads of dishes or clothes (in their respective washers), and the like.

A water footprint in the literal sense. From http://liveearth.org/en/save/water

Literacy Glog Update

I finished my book two months ago. It was interesting, but focused more on the law side of the trials it was describing, than the science of it all. There was very little reference to any of the characteristics of arsenic, such as the metallic taste of the compound, or the chemical makeup. On the historical value of the book, it shows not only the discrimination against what were considered loose women, but the discrimination against the lower classes in the American Victorian age. In one case, the victim came from a very poor family, and already had one child. When her sister was on the witness stand, not only was the defense attorney rude, but the prosecuting attorney was as well. When the sister began crying, a member of the community sitting in the audience reportedly began smirking. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the accused man's wife perjured herself (lied) on the stand. When she gave her testimony, the defending and prosecuting attorneys were polite, and tried to avoid making her upset, because her husband, the man accused of the murder, was the town's minister.