Groundwater Pollution Issues
How does America's groundwater become polluted and what are the sources of pollution that goes into the groundwater? How important is unpolluted groundwater to the sustainability of communities? Also, what are the solutions for this pollution of the groundwater? These issues and others will be reviewed in this paper.
Groundwater Facts
According to William M. Alley, writing in the peer-reviewed journal Environment, groundwater exists "…almost everywhere beneath the land surface" and it plays a "crucial role in sustaining streamflow between precipitation events" and in particular during "protracted dry periods" (Alley, 2006, p. 16). Alley explains that about 85 billion gallons of groundwater are "withdrawn daily," and upwards of ninety percent of that water is used for "…irrigation, public supply (deliveries to homes businesses, industry) and self-supplied industrial use" (Alley, 16). Of those 85 billion gallons withdrawn from groundwater sources daily, nearly two-thirds is used for irrigation, Alley explains. Also, groundwater provides about half of the drinking water needed by U.S. communities, and moreover, there is a problem with groundwater in that information on its use is "…spotty and often inaccurate within the United States" (Alley, 17). Laws that regulate the use of groundwater "…vary significantly from state to state and from one water-use category to another…" (Alley, 17).
Sources of Groundwater Pollution
What is known about groundwater however is that it can become contaminated with pollutants, including the use of pesticides. The United States Geological Survey reports that the United States is the "…largest producer of food products in the world," and one of the main reasons that the U.S. can claim that title is because of the use of chemicals like pesticides to "…control the insects, weeds, and other organisms that attack food crops" (USGS). But there is a cost that is associated with the heavy use of pesticides, and in fact "..,.pesticide contamination of groundwater" has national implications because, as mentioned earlier in this paper, about half of the nation uses groundwater for drinking purposes (USGS, p. 1). In the agricultural areas where most crops are grown -- and hence, where pesticides are most often used -- about "…95% of that population relies upon ground water for drinking water," the USGS explains.
Thirty or so years ago it was believed that the soil acted as "…a protective filter that stopped pesticides from reaching groundwater," but recent studies prove that is not the case. In fact pesticides do reach groundwater aquifers from the use of pesticides in crops above, they do reach aquifers when contaminate surface water seeps down through the soil, where there are "accidental spills and leaks" or "improper disposal" -- and even through "injection waste materials into wells," the USGS continues. The polluting chemicals from pesticides may not reach groundwater sources for years (there is an ongoing study of this problem), but because "many hundreds of these compounds" are in use, the resulting danger to drinking water is of great concern to communities.
Hydraulic Fracturing or Fracking
Pesticides are not the only source of pollution for groundwater resources. The USGS explains that there is "…an increasing public concern about the effects of energy production on surface-water and groundwater quality" (USGS, 2012). The concerns are raised because the system of "hydraulic fracturing" is being used more frequently by energy companies as they search for oil and gas. Part of the system of hydraulic fracturing calls for horizontal drilling in "los permeability formations," the USGS continues. In the first place, oil drilling companies can contribute pollution to groundwater from the surface as well as below ground. At the drill site (or production facility) there can be "…leaks from pits or tanks, chemical spills, and discharge of wastewater," all of which can contaminate groundwater quality (USGS, p. 1). And leaks due to hydraulic fracturing, from "failed casing seals, pipeline breaks, abandoned wells, deep-well disposal of flowback or produced wastewater," all can pollute groundwater resources (USGS).
A Discussion of a Contemporary Issue -- Abandoned Oil and Gas Wells
Some twelve million holes have been drilled into the ground in the United States over the past 150 years, in search of gas and oil (Kusnetz, et al., 2011). Many of those wells (holes) have been abandoned, but they have nonetheless contributed to the pollution of drinking water sources in Fort Knox, Kentucky, and have leaked oil into water well in Michigan and Ohio, Kusnetz writes in the Scientific American. Other leaking wells that contaminate water sources underground have been located in
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