POLLUTION, WATER

And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man; and every living soul died in the sea … And the third angel poured out his vial upon the rivers and fountains of waters; and they became blood.

—Rev. 16:3, 4

4461 Water Pollution Statistics

It is estimated that between 5–10 million tons of polluting petroleum products are released every year to float on the world’s seas. Up to 1.8 million tons come from automobile exhaust emissions which rise into the atmosphere and eventually precipitate onto the ocean surface. Tankers spill another million. The world’s polluted rivers spew out the rest.

4462 Mankind’s Major Hazard: Impure Water

At present, impure water—not scarcity of water—is the world’s major hazard. Each year, 10 million deaths result from waterborne intestinal diseases. And over one-third of humanity are debilitated as a result of impure water. A pure water supply could slash the incidence of cholera, diarrhea, dysentery and typhoid up to 75%.

About $21 billion were pledged by the “family of nations” between 1977 and 1980 to provide safe water. But the World Bank estimates that it would take about twice that sum to eliminate most of earth’s water problems.

4463 Vitality Of Seas Dipping

French Undersea Explorer Jacques Cousteau estimates that the vitality of the seas, in terms of fish and plant life, has declined some 30% to 50% in the past twenty years.

Testifying before a U. N. symposium on the environment in Geneva, Swiss Marine Explorer Jacques Piccard warned abruptly that if nothing is done, all the oceans will be dead before the end of the century.

4464 The Clean Water Act

The 1972 Clean Water Act was a landmark measure aimed at wiping out water pollution from coast to coast by 1985. The law gave the nation’s cities and industries until July 1977 to reduce pollution to certain intermediate levels. More stringent standards would be effective in 1983.

Environmentalists are standing firm on the broad federal powers granted by this 1972 law.

4465 Ventilating A River

A badly-polluted river on the outskirts of Stockholm is having its waters cleansed and revitalized, using a compressed-air technique jointly.

Lower waters from the lake, with little oxygen content, are sucked into an aeration chamber where they come into contact with compressed air from a shorebased compressor. The oxygenated water then returns via outlet lines to the lake’s lowest stratum, so aeration is achieved without upsetting the lake’s temperature stratification. The freshly-ventilated lake bottom, stagnant for many years, is soon sufficiently oxygenated to support fish and plant life.

4466 Forcing Back The Issue

Among the many laws regarding water pollution in the Soviet Union, there is one regulation which specifies that all wastes must be discharged upstream from a factory’s own intake pipes. In this manner, the factory gets back what it puts out, thus forcing it to remove pollutants if it wants clean water.

—Table Talk

4467 Questioning Ocean Dumps

Toward the close of 1970, quite a furor was raised by the plans of the United States Army to discard containers of obsolete nerve gas into the ocean.

Government officials joined with private citizens in protesting the move out of fear that the gas, already beginning in some cases to escape slightly from its heavily-encased receptacles, might destroy marine or even land life. Even the not-too-sure assurances that the escaping gas, when mixed with ocean salt water, would be neutralized did not allay the growing concern.

Indeed, other lands issued protests against the deposit of the deadly nerve gas into the ocean, and plans to place coffins of poison gas to a point some two hundred miles off the Florida coast was scuttled. Plans called for the ship to be sunk slowly but, as usual, something went wrong. The vessel went down rapidly and hit bottom with a shattering thud. No one was quite sure how many, if any, of the nerve gas rockets may have been damaged by the mishap.

Not too long ago, Scandinavian scientists stirred up a mild panic when they reported that lead and concrete-encased containers of arsenic, dumped into the sea many years ago, had begun to show signs of considerable erosion. The scientists feared that the arsenic—still potent—might escape into the waters. Their fears were justified, too, since according to one source, there was enough arsenic in those sunken capsules to poison the whole world.

—Herbert Henry Ehrenstein

4468 Oil Spills

The Torrey Canyon, a 975-foot supertanker, was wrecked on the Seven Stones Reef, fifteen miles off the English Cornish coast. Tremendous efforts were undertaken by the English to prevent the oil, leaking out of the tanker, from befouling the beaches of England.

Stated Newsweek: “Yet, in the face of all this, the oil implacably advanced, rock by rock, yard by yard. Occasionally, a beach would be completely cleaned—only to be fouled again by the next incoming tide. One after the other, the lovely white beaches of Cornwall turned into foul-smelling sloughs. Oil patches sprayed with detergents took on the colour of dried blood, and village streets along the coast began to acquire the greasy, stained aspect of gas stations. To Cornwall’s defenders, the battle looked endless—and hopeless.”

4469 Birds Die From Spills

The Audubon Society on several occasions has called attention to the senseless slaughter of thousands of Atlantic sea birds due to the careless spillage of oil from ocean-going ships. The smallest amount of this substance will mat the feathers, destroying their insulating properties and interfering with the normal function of the wings in flight.

Tests have proven that a drop of oil no larger than a quarter will work its way through the plumage of a bird to cause slow but certain death from exposure and starvation.

—Our Daily Bread

See also: Rivers ; Seas and Oceans ; Springs and Fountains.