21st Century Literature Answer Key Quarter 2, Exercises of English

Download 21st Century Literature Answer Key Quarter 2 and more Exercises English in PDF only on Docsity! Clean, drinkable water is more than a precious resounce—it's crucial to human life, Linfortunately, population growlh ane pollution are threatening fo seriously undermine the availability of dean drinking water in many of the world’s major cities. Thal means that getting clean, pure drinking water to people has become an increasingly difficull task, requiring cities nol only to pay for expensive treatments, but pay for the construction of treatment plants to dole out said expensive treatments. Here are some of tno ways thal art senously messing wilh clean water: 1, Agriculture * Agriculture is a huge contributor to waber pollution, from fertilizers used for row crops lo the manure created by large-scale animal agriculture, in Washington slate, a 2015 lawsuil found thal a huge dairy operation had been pall groundwater ina nearby community, causing the level of nitrates in resident drinking water to spike to unsafe bevels, Nitrates, found in high levels, can cause serious haaltl problems for both infants and aculs with compromised immune systema. » Elsewhere, industrial peoducthon of crops like com and soy. which naly heavily on fortiizers ta increase yields, can lead to dangerous algal blooms which, when toxic, Gan shut down drinking waler for ontire ilies, When feriizer & aver applied. not all of it can be taken up by crops—the remaining fertilizer ends up 85 runoff in siraams, rivers. and. eventually, lakes and oceans. 2. Fossil fuel production » Fossil fuel production is anolher human activity that places considerable strain on drinking water—and nol just because fracking and coal mining use a great deal of water, bul because their waste products can pollute groundwater, and therefore drinking water, as well. ® With fracking—also keown as hydraulic fracturing. when high pressure water, sand, and chemicals are used lo break open subsurface shale in erder to liberate the mvural gas trapped thergin—waber is a massive Companent of the entire process, Each tracked well requires somewhere betwean 1 million and 6 million gallons of water per well, which can place strain on surface water resources. ® But it's not just natural gas production that can impact water quality—ooal consumplion can also have serious implications tor water quality. Coal ash, the byproduct of burning coal for energy, is one of the largest forms of waste generated in the Untied States. It also contains toxic conlaminants, like arsenic and mercury, as woll as radioactive material, In some cases, power companies store coal ash in unlined pits, which can leach into groundwater. » Mountaintop removal mining—a technique where coal mining companies remove tops of mouwnlains to reveal coal—can also degrade the drinking water of communilies that live near the mining sites. The process of removing the mountaintop requires lols of heavy machinery and explosives, and results in tons of waste in Ihe form of fallen trees, waste rock, and olher debris.