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| Image of algae blooms within the Great Lakes. The turquoise-green areas are the blooms of cyanobacteria |
Within the United States, the Great Lakes contain about 20% of the world's fresh water and yet industrial waste, detergents, trash, herbicides, and insecticides wind their way to these precious sources of water every day. Fact: water pollution causes more than 3.4 million deaths each and every year (water.org). The different amounts of pollution combined with the climate changes cause a myriad of problems within these lakes, one of which is the recent explosion of algae blooms. Scientists are worried about the causes of these blooms but also the effects they will pertain to the surrounding environments. Algae blooms are caused by the rapid increases in the algae population within an aquatic environment. The reason why these blooms are appearing within our Great Lakes are many, ranging from the increasing amounts of pollutants within the lakes that the algae thrive on, to the introduction of zebra mussels from a ballast ship in 1988. The concern, however, comes from the fact that the algae blooms are poisonous and contaminate the local aquatic populations within our lakes. Bacteria such as E-coli and That in turn enters the Food Chain as the contaminated fish are eaten by animals which in turn make their way to our dinner plates. As the fresh water within the lakes become contaminated by pollutants and the algae blooms increase, the effects on the environment will only continue to worsen unless everyone works together to cut down on these issues. That way, none of us will become a victim of water pollution.
Image from http://quest.eb.com/search?page=1&localizeSearchMetaData=false&resultsPerPage=15&subjectId=0&collectionId=0&keyword=great+lakes
http://water.org/water-crisis/water-facts/water/
http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/Home/LakeErieBirdTrailIndex/FactsTrivia/tabid/23144/Default.aspx
http://www.sciencedaily.com/articles/a/algal_bloom.htm
