5.2 Public Health Importance of Safe Drinking Water



Water is essential to life. The human body is made up of 50-75% water and the earth surface is covered in about 70% water. Due to water's integral role in every area of life from farming to manufacturing, it is evident how the Clean Water Act was necessary from a public health standpoint.
After watching the videos Water Facts, What is Ground Water and Clean Water Act of 1972 I learned a few new things about water.
First, what I learned about the Clean Water Act (CWA)  as that it first began in 1948 but after receiving recognition it expanded in 1972. The purpose of the CWA is to, "regulate discharges of pollutants into the waters of the U.S and regulate the quality standards for surface waters (epa.gov. 2017)." The act sets high standards from municipalities, industries and other facilities to follow by requiring them to get a permit if discharges are ejected in water directly. This is part of a pollution control program.
Second, I learned that surface water are lakes, rivers, oceans and all other types of bodies of water. Ground water is what is crammed between rocks, soil, and sediment. As humans, we depend heavily on ground water for drinking as well as farms are dependent on ground water for farming purposes. Third and lastly, I learned that more than 25% of bottled water comes from the same place as tap water. It is because of our dependence and that of other animals on water, that the Clean Water Act of 1972 is important for us to protect and continue to use that to make smarter water choices.

Comments

  1. Krissy PamatmatOctober 11, 2017 at 11:02 AM

    Hi Mayra,

    Yes, water is essential to life. We don't only consume water but we also use water for agriculture and for other industries. The Clean Water Act is really important for regulating point source pollution, like factories. It also ensure that the water meets safety standards for people. I agree that we need to make smarter water choices. We need to do our part to protect our water from pollution. We are also the ones that will suffer if we don't keep our water clean.

    - Krissy

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

9.3 Green Chemistry

Image
Our world, especially, the Pacific Ocean area known as the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" would  look a lot differently if the 12 principles of green chemistry were applied when plastic was invented. For example, instead of plastic disintegrating into smaller and smaller components and remaining a polymer, it could have been made biodegradable ( P rinciple 10- Design chemicals and products to degrade after use )  so that it does not end up accumulating in the environment. Also, if green chemistry was considered and applied before the bottle was designed and produced, aquatic wildlife would not ingest toxic derivatives of plastic such as PCB and BPA ( Principle 8 Avoid chemical derivatives, Principle 4-Design safer chemicals and products, Principle 3-Design less hazardous chemical syntheses, Principle 2-Maximize atom econom y). The polymer, the smallest unit of plastic is so toxic and harmful to the food chain, that even people that consume fish intoxicated by plastic residues
Read more

10.5 Occupational Safety and Health Org

Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) recently released update guidelines that can be applied to small or medium sized work settings. My work place is the type where OSHA guidelines could be applicable. The goal of the guidelines is to reduce work related injuries and or death, reduce workers' compensation issues, and overall improve the workplace environment for employee and employers. The core elements are management leadership, worker participation, hazard identification and assessment, hazard prevention and control, education and training, program evaluation and improvement, and lastly, communication and coordination for host employers, contractors, and staffing agencies. For example, for hazard prevention and control, the benefit for workers is that workers identify what they would consider a type of hazard. Worker's input is highly regarded and seen as essential. This is important, although at my work, we have occupational therapist check our work space to
Read more