Why dose water matter?
Pollution is a large problem in city such as Pittsburgh that was built with industry and pollution. Pittsburgh has been a very industrialized city from its beginning. This is a problem because pollution can hurt the environment and cause problems with drinking water. Pittsburgh has come a long way since its beginning. There is still work to be done to help improve the pollution in Pittsburgh. Pollution can affect everyone with acid rain witch is destroying of the environment, and unsafe drinking water and also how everyone can help will be explained.
Acid rain is when sulfur and nitrogen oxides are released into the air and mixes with the water particles creating sulfuric and nitric acids and they fall as rain. This causes problems for the entire ecosystem. This can kill trees hurt organisms and affect the water sources through eutrophication. Eutrophication is when water rich in nitrogen mix into the waterway and cause excessive algae growth. This takes the oxygen out of the water and sometimes even the algae lets off toxins during their decaying after it dies and that adds to the problems with the water killing off most organisms within the water. This causes a problem for the ecosystem because the water becomes very dangerous and all the organisms that drink from it will die and the ecosystem could completely fall apart.
With all this pollution in the water it makes unsafe drinking water. All the different chemicals and waste that would be in the water from fertilizers, acid rain, eutrophication, toxins let off by the decaying organisms the water would become very dangerous to drink. With very advanced filtration systems it would still leave some of the dangerous chemical in the drinking water. This would harm the population of Pittsburgh. It would cause many diseases that are not very common now, and destroy what is left of the wild life. We currently do not have to see such results but if pollution was to get worse you would see such results and that would cause problems for everyone because the polluted water would continue downstream and hurt the environment along the shore of the waterways in Pittsburgh.
There are ways for people to help reduce the amount of pollution in the environment so that we never have to deal with some of the extreme circumstances stated above. Some are disposing of paint, chemical cleaning products, used oil, polishes, insecticides, and other hazardous products. A better thing to do is continue disposing of dangerous materials correctly and not buy and new ones. Only buying safe environmentally friendly products will help reduce polluted runoff. Two more things you can do are reducing water usage (conserve water) and use all natural fertilizers. This will help reduce dangerous runoff that is polluting our water sources.
In conclusion water pollution in Pittsburgh is a problem that needs to be worked on. The acid rain destroying the habitat and the entire ecosystem. Also the way everything affects the quality of drinking water. This can all be improved by some very easy things that can be done in your own home. This was a public service announcement on the pollution of water.

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/wuin.html
http://www.chatham.edu/pti/curriculum/units/2003/Foster-Wilhelm.pdf
http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/gsteps.asp

By: Dylan Stone Public Service Announcement