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.