Water Pollution In The Danjiangkou Reservoir

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Water pollution in the Danjiangkou Reservoir is getting dangerously out of hand. The pollution is getting worse due to the lead in the water and untreated sewage. Water pollution is classified as the contamination of water bodies. The Contamination can be caused from inadequate treatment of pollutants. As said in the book Water Pollution, “much of water pollution comes from factories that make cars, clothing, shoes, refrigerators, computers, and books and they have to get rid of the chemicals and sometimes they dump used chemicals into the rivers, streams, and oceans.” Marilyn Beach makes a good observation in her article, Water, Pollution, And Public Health In China ; “A factory at the water’s edge; not only did it haze the air with putrid fumes, it also discharged a steady stream of untreated pollutants directly into the lake”. Water pollution can come from many sources and can leave a lasting impression on the water source. The pollution of the Danjiangkou Reservoir is getting worse due to lead in the water. Lead in the water system can lead to lead poisoning, which according to Stephen Chen’s article, Beijing Drinking Water Reservoir Had Lead Levels '20 times WHO Standard ' for at Least Three Years, can then cause “delays in physical or mental development with detectable deficits in attention span and learning abilities in children, while in adults the symptoms include kidney problems and increased blood pressure”. Chen’s article also reported; “lead levels in the Danjiangkou Reservoir were 20 times the maximum safety level set by the World Health Organization, at more than 200 micrograms per liter”. Doing everyday activities can even cause a jump in the lead levels. Chen’s article states; “the increased levels of lead may be caused by an increase in vehicle exhaust pollutants in the upper Han river basin area, as well as mining related activities”. Lead is a huge concern for the citizens living in Beijing, and the problem keeps getting worse. While the research team in Chen’s article was collecting data for lead levels they also came across other kinds of pollutants as …show more content…
Beach states in her article, “studies show that over 30 billion tones of urban sewage are discharged into China’s rivers, lakes, and seas each year, with between 2.7 and 10% receiving no prior treatment”. Sewage in the water can lead to many health problems, and the untreated sewage can contain many waterborne infections and parasitic diseases. Chuanfu Zhang’s article, Higher Isolation of NDM-1 Producing Acinetobacter Baumannii from the Sewage of the Hospitals in Beijing, states; “Discharged sewage from hospitals if improperly treated may contain pathogens and antibiotic residues that could lead to acute infections”. The reason why The Reservoir has untreated sewage flowing into it is because the facilities made to treat sewage could not keep up with the discharges. Beach explains, “municipal waste facilities were not adequate to deal with the industrial discharges and waste form rapidly urbanizing towns nearby”. She also interview Han Lanquan director of local Guizhou research institute in her article and he explained, “ While we are improving our ability to monitor and limit industrial discharges, municipal sewage treatment systems are often too expensive for us to build”. The facilities are there to treat the sewage properly but they are not being maintained and they run below

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