1. Tyler Wood
2. 11/4/11
3. Excessive nitrogen nitrates in drinking water from pulp and paper mills
4. We cannot survive more than three days without water. Hello my name is Tyler Wood and I work for the United States Environmental Protection Agency I hope that by now you know that everyone needs and uses water without it we would in fact perish. The excessive nitrates in drinking water cause harm to everyone. If people and especially young children are exposed to, too rich of a concentration of nitrates in their water it can cause serious health problems and even death in some severe cases. When we have a lot of nitrates in our body it causes the oxygen carrying capacity of our blood to reduce at an alarming rate. Since nitrogen is highly soluble in water we should limit the use and amounts of nitrogen that we use or is released into our environment. Farmers and landowners should limit their uses of nitrogen rich fertilizers. The use of non-organic fertilizers should be heavily restricted but that is beside the point. Pulp and paper mills are also to blame for the release of nitrates into water. According to the Unites States Environmental Protection Agency pulp and paper mill rank in the top ten major industries that release the most nitrates into the environment. The use of nitrates on farms is a big problem as the nitrates fall out the bottom of our soils and enter the ground water fairly quickly, but pulp and paper mills usually have dams to power their mills which means that the discharge from the mill is rather close to the water and possibly many peoples drinking water supply and that’s not to mention the impacts it has on other organisms besides us. There should be tighter restrictions on where settling ponds can be located for mills and the discharges should have better filtration systems on them to help reduce the amount of nitrates released by the mill. Pulp and paper mills are important to our society but more importantly is our water quality so we need to come up with some sort of system to reduce the nitrates to sufficient levels. The health and safety of everyone and other organisms is in our hands we need to do something about it. I would encourage you to tell me your ideas in how you would help reduce the amount of nitrates you use as landowners and what we should do to reduce the amount of nitrates released by mills while continuing to have them stay in operation.
5. Here is a fact sheet by the US EPA that tells you just a little about nitrogen/Nitrates
http://www.epa.gov/ogwdw/pdfs/factsheets/ioc/tech/nitrates.pdf
4 comments:
Nitrates are some nasty things. I have never really thought about their discharge from pulp mills before. This is an immediate problem that I had not necessarily considered in Central Wisconsin. I think trying to regulate them further will continue to be a problem since the mills are not the only source. Once the green lawn norm is changed then maybe a better set of regulations could be found.
I agree that nitrates are nasty.. But it seems like it takes a high concentration to kill you. If that is the case every thing is hazardous because to much water can kill you. Its unfair to focus on paper mills because its the low hanging fruit of the problem it is easy to regulate paper mills but its not the major source of the problem. Focus should be placed on individuals to stop green lawns as Russell said.
I hadn't thought of the mills as sources, either--mainly from farms and lawns. Thanks for the post.
Well thank you for the post... it is a issue that is a concern and as far as for central Wisconsin we do have a lot of mills in the a area.
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