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Today I would like to write about the article I read in “The
Guardian”. This article was prepared by Jim Robbins, for Yale Environment 360,
the part of Guardian Environment Network.
This article is about storm waters, which flow to water reservoirs and
methods people use to prevent this.
Diffuse pollution — a problem faced by
many regions worldwide. In fact this
pollution affected not only humans, but also all habitants of water reservoir.
The article says, that: “Puget Sound, one of America's great estuaries in
Seattle has a very rich marine life: there are inhabits killer whales, seals,
schools of salmon and others. The presence of such impressive marine life,
however, belies the fact that the sound is seriously polluted”.
After the rains, storm water goes into
the same system of underground pipes, where this water is collected. Each year
1 billion gallons overflow into the river sound because the system contains
more water that can be treated. Apart of this water many other substance like
motor oil, chemical wastes, heavy metals and etc. also arrive there. How this
pollution affected marine habitants? The number investigations have been done,
for example, the samples of killer whales taken from blowhole, have detected
fungi, different kind of viruses and bacteria, living in their respiratory
track. And I think the most worrying is that some of these viruses are
antibiotic-resistant. Also salmon in streams are killed by torrents of dirty
storm water. The question is, what can be done to solve the problem? One of the methods, which is
successfully using all over the world, storm water runoff
called “ Green Infrastructure”. What is
“Green Infrastructure”? Green
Infrastructure is a concept originating in the United
States in the mid-1990s that highlights the importance of the natural
environment in decisions about land-use planning. In particular there is an
emphasis on the "life support" functions provided by a network of
natural ecosystems, with an emphasis on interconnectivity to support long-term sustainability.
Examples include clean water and healthy soils, as well as the more anthropocentric
functions such as recreation and providing shade and shelter in and around
towns and cities. Green infrastructure is the harnessing of the natural
processes of trees and other vegetation — so-called ecosystem services — to
carry out the functions of the built systems. Green infrastructure often
intercepts the water before it can run into streets and become polluted and
stores the water for gradual release through percolation or evapotranspiration.
Trees also clean dirty water through natural filtering functions.
Seattle is one of the early adopters of
this method. What they do is preserving existing wetlands critical to cleaning
water and storing runoff. The residences
of Seattle also been asked to install “rain gardens” (A rain garden is a
planted depression that allows rainwater runoff from impervious urban areas
like roofs, driveways, walkways, parking lots, and compacted lawn areas the
opportunity to be absorbed. This reduces rain runoff by allowing storm water to
soak into the ground They can be designed for specific soils and climates. The
purpose of a rain garden is to improve water quality in nearby bodies of water.
Rain gardens can cut down on the amount of pollution reaching creeks and
streams by up to 30%).
But not only Seattle who uses this
method, also for example Toronto is the first city who requires green roofs on
all new commercial building. This roofs are part of storm water treatment
system.
Another green infrastructure tool is
permeable pavement, which is made of materials that allow water to soak through
into the ground instead of running off. In Chicago the city is modifying its
urban alleys with permeable pavement and with "cool" pavement that
reduces temperatures. One limitation is that permeable pavement can't be used
for regular streets because plowing and sanding damage it.
The benefits of this method of course
not only storm water treatment, but also for example, the air becoming cleaner
due to increasing amount of greenings.
In conclusion, I would like to say that
this article was a very big surprise for me, because I even didn’t aware of such
method of strife with storm water. And it is bring me some happiness because
storm water is really big concern of water reservoir pollution. Maybe this
method doesn’t solve all problems, but obviously a big part of it. I really hope in the future we would be able
to find a new ways and methods to prevent our sea, rivers and marine fauna from
such kind of troubles.
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