Water pollution is becoming a clear problem in the United
States, due in part to farmers planting and maintaining their crops. In Upper
Mississippi, nitrogen and phosphate from crop fertilizer has seeped into rivers
and streams without it being filtrated naturally by the surrounding
environment. Furthermore, this problem is also critical in Iowa, where the
polluted water can reach the Gulf of Mexico, causing anything within 6,700
square miles to die and costing fisheries 2.8 billion dollars a year(Palmer).
What can we do?
(Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico that spans 6,700 square miles )
(Dead Zone in the Gulf of Mexico that spans 6,700 square miles )
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| Acquired At: http://www.louisianaseafoodnews.com/2011/11/02/dead-zone-affects-fisheries-in-the-northern-gulf-of-mexico/ |
Preservationists have filed lawsuits against the
Environmental Protection Agency to create stricter standards for phosphate and
nitrogen runoffs (Palmer). Resulting from these lawsuits, farmers have created
their own solution to the problem: floating islands. Floating islands would be
used for filtration; the contaminated water would go through the islands and
filtrate all the nitrogen and phosphate before it enters rivers. According to Charles
Theiling, a hydrological specialist for the Army Corps of Engineers in
Davenport, Iowa, these floating islands will mimic wetlands, which have done
this for many years(Palmer).
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| Acquired At: http://www.floatingislandinternational.com/products/biohaven-technology/ |
By the way these islands are built from recycled soda
bottles and grown with native plants from the area. Additionally, these
floating islands will only serve a temporary solution to water contamination;
there still needs to be a definite solution for this problem. However, a
company called Floating Island International is probably trying to make
floating islands part of the solution. This business has created floating
islands the size of a backyard, called BioHaven (Palmer). They serve the same
purpose as a normal floating island, but they are much bigger.
Works Cited
Palmer, Lisa. "Floating Islands to the
Rescue." Green Floating Islands to the Rescue Comments. New
York Times, 15 Feb. 2013. Web. 17 Feb. 2013.
<http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/02/15/floating-islands-to-the-rescue/>.
This was a really interesting post! I had no idea that floating islands could filter the fertilizer waste in this way. Could you expand the text, perhaps, and explain to your readers how these floating islands work like wetlands? I wonder if it's safe for animals to interact with these floating islands? And how would a community get together to clean up the additional waste?
ReplyDeleteOne technical question I have is at number: 6,700 square miles. That's a huge swathe of territory. Are you saying that nothing grows in that area that's contaminated? Can you give a specific example/image of this?