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According to the American College Dictionary, pollution is defined as:  �to make foul or unclean; dirty.

When it is unfit for its intended use, water is considered polluted.

Point sources of pollution occur when harmful substances are emitted directly into a body of water.

The Chesapeake Bay, forexample, has been polluted with the nutrients nitrogen andphosphorus and with excess sediment caused, in part, by urbanrunoff. The excess nutrients cause algae blooms that blocksunlight from reaching bay grasses-which are a source of food,shelter, and nursery grounds for many aquatic species.

In aneffort to control nutrient pollution in the Chesapeake Bay, theExecutive Council of the Chesapeake Bay Program" established agoal to reduce the nitrogen and phosphorus entering theChesapeake Bay by 40 percent, including through control of runofffrom urban areas.

Pollution at the nation’s 3,500 ocean, lake and bay beaches resulted in more than 25,000 closing or swimming advisory days last year, 28 percent more than in 2005, and the highest number in the 17 years that records have been kept, according to a new federal report released Tuesday.

he prime culprit was storm water runoff

Another 1,300 days were attributed to sewage spills and overflows.

used for scouring arsenic, bacteria and cloudiness out of rural drinking water

There, the residual water from boiling the flat, oval-shaped lobes of prickly pear for salads and other dishes was used to clear up cloudy water drawn from the river before use for cooking or drinking.

Mucilage is the clear, gooey, viscous liquid from within the cactus which helps to seal water inside the plant so it can survive desert-dry conditions.

This pollution, coupled with the diversion of much of the river's clean water by Israel, Syria and Jordan, is endangering the river

"The Lower River is an open sewage canal, and the sad irony is that the sewage water is keeping the river flowing. Being baptized in the water below the dam - something that takes place on the Jordanian side of the river - cannot be too spiritually uplifting,"

Other ongoing research by Alcantar's team has shown that the mucilage can also kill bacteria in the water, solving another potential water quality problem.

The mucilage either engulfs the bacteria and starves them, or it binds to the bacteria and causes them to settle out of the water.

Mucilage consists of carbohydrates and sugars.

China in particular has long argued that it is too poor to afford the Western luxury of environmental awareness.

China ranks last among 15 nations in its income group (the fifth decile), behind Vietnam. If Colombia, the group's leader, can afford environmental concern, why can't China?

China fares slightly better in protecting its habitat but much worse in measures of industrial ills.

For example, some types of water pollution change the color of the water in a lake or stream, whereas other types are less visible, but both can be equally detrimental to the health of humans and nonhuman animals.

For example, 2,000 years ago, when the Romans smelted silver, lead was released into the environment and carried by the wind over long distances; this lead can still be detected in Scandinavian lake sediments.

Relatively few of these new compounds have been thoroughly tested for possible health or environmental effects.

Beijing Olympics

China's environmental

Choked Waters

ome contaminants are carcinogens. DDT is toxic to humans and can alter chromosomes. PCBs cause liver and nerve damage, skin eruptions, vomiting, fever, diarrhea, and fetal abnormalities. Along many shores, shellfish can no longer be taken because of contamination by DDT, sewage, or industrial wastes.

Dysentery, salmonellosis, cryptosporidium, and hepatitis are among the maladies transmitted by sewage in drinking and bathing water.

water pollutants are hazardous to humans as well as lesser species; sodium is implicated in cardiovascular disease, nitrates in blood disorders. Mercury and lead can

There are two kinds of crocodile in Australia.

They live in the hot north of Australia.

Crocodile scales have become thick skin

More than a mere biological oddity, the discovery adds weight to Oremland's theory that the bacteria's ability evolved billions of years ago, when the first life was just getting started on Earth. At the time, the planet's oceans were devoid of oxygen, but hydrothermal vents spewed elements such as sulfur, iron and arsenic into the water column.

In this ancient stew, arsenic may have been an important nutrient to life. The life forms would have used whatever they could to survive these noxious waters, and sunlight and arsenic were probably plentiful.

Poison or Fuel?

Exposure to arsenic can occur from the environment and food consumption

Arsenic contamination of groundwater has led to a massive epidemic of arsenic poisoning in Bangladesh[32] and neighbouring countries.

Presently 42 major incidents around the world have been reported on groundwater arsenic contamination. It is estimated that approximately 57 million people are drinking groundwater with arsenic concentrations elevated above the World Health Organization's standard of 10 parts per billion. However, a study of cancer rates in Taiwan [33] suggested that significant increases in cancer mortality appear only at levels above 150 parts per billion. The arsenic in the groundwater is of natural origin, and is released from the sediment into the groundwater due to the anoxic conditions of the subsurface.

1. Polar ice caps meltingThe ice caps melting is a four-pronged danger.First, it will raise sea levels. There is 5,773,000 cubic miles of water in ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow. According to the National Snow and Ice Data Center, if all glaciers melted today the seas would rise about 230 feet. Luckily, that’s not going to happen. But sea levels will rise.Second, melting ice caps will screw up the global ecosystem. The ice caps are fresh water, and when they melt into the ocean, they make it less salty, or desalinize the ocean. The desalinization of the gulf current will screw up, to put it simply, the current. It will cool the area around north-east America and Western Europe. Luckily, that will slow some of the other effects of global warming in that area. But with the stream shutdown, the whole Atlantic ecosystem could be warped.Third, all the animals in the Arctic will be in danger because of a changing habitat.Fourth, global warming will accelerate with the ice caps gone. Ice caps are white, and reflect sunlight. Some of that sunlight is reflected back into space, further cooling Earth. If the ice caps are melted, only the dark-colored ocean will be there. Darker colors absorb sunlight, further warming the Earth.