water is one of our planet's most important natural resources in fact it's a resource we literally can't live without [Music] how much do you really know about water did you know there's as much water on the earth now as there was when the earth was formed there will never be any more or any less did you know that 97% of that water supply is saltwater in the oceans and unusable for our daily needs that another 2% is frozen in ice caps and Glaciers so that leaves just 1% of the planet's entire water supply are rivers lakes and groundwater to meet everyone's water needs here's the catch many of those rivers lakes and groundwater sources are impaired endangered by pollutants that's right this limited resource we all use day in and day out is in serious Jeopardy from plain old dirt to toxic chemicals pollutants in our waterways are threatening our health and the health of the environment so how are these pollutants getting into our waterways and what can we do about it that's the complicated puzzle we'll Explore More Today solving the water quality puzzle is an enormous challenge simply because there are so many pieces to consider the ways we use water the practices that threaten it the different pollutants in the water and the sources of those pollutants and hydrology the water cycle and ways we've interfered with it complicating the puzzle even more these pieces never combine in exactly the same way every community's water quality problems are unique and depend entirely on which pieces are in play simply understanding the role each piece plays isn't enough to solve problems you have to understand the fit between the pieces their relationship to one another the way they're at work within your community create your specific water problems ready to dive in the first piece of the puzzle is our absolute Reliance on water it's a resource that can't be replaced which is why it's so imperative we protect it let's take a quick look at different ways we use water we all need drinking water a human can go weeks without food but only days without water and we don't just need water to survive we need clean water drinking water accounts for a tiny percentage of our overall water usage less than 1% but it's one of the most important of all the uses we also need water that works for us doing the dirty household jobs like laundry and cleaning for growing gardens and keeping Lawns green Beyond household chores are the heavy duty jobs in Industry water is used in many manufacturing processes as an ingredient in food production as a coolant for producing steel and power as the driving force in hydroelectric generation the list goes on and on one of water's biggest jobs is helping to feed the world water is essential to agriculture without it Farmers couldn't grow crops or produce livestock Beyond its use in the production of goods water is often used to transport those goods to Market waterways are integral to National and worldwide shipping when water's not working it's playing one of its most popular uses is for recreation whether it's swimming water skiing fishing the water's got to be clean polluted recreational Waters spell trouble for both humans and Wildlife which brings us to the final use habitat for wildlife rivers lakes and oceans support entire diverse and fragile ecosystems ecosystems that can be shattered by even the smallest changes in water's quality we depend so heavily on water isn't it ironic that many of the ways we use it are actually impairing its quality careless industrial use of water can contaminate the resource with toxic chemicals recreational boats and Jet Skis can dump gas and oil into the very water we want to enjoy if the ways we use water were the only practices creating pollution problems the puzzle would be solved we just change the ways we use water but it's not that simple a whole range of practices the individual actions we take and decisions we make affect water quality we all live Downstream of someone else and um there's someone else that lives Downstream of us that needs to utilize that water so it's important to um be careful at how how you use the Watershed and the land in that area and what you might be introducing into that water body one person's decision to properly dispose of paint keeps that paint out of a stream one developer's decision to control erosion keeps sediment out of a river multiply those individual decisions across an entire community and you can see the impact proper practices can have practices are closely tied to the centerpiece of this whole water quality puzzle pollutants some water pollutants are easy to see like garbage but the most serious pollution problems aren't as obvious sediment nutrients chemicals pathogens sediment is simply soil it's a valuable resource in a farm field or along a stream bank but it becomes a major problem when it's was was into waterways at the root of the problem is erosion erosion off a farm Fields uh construction sites where you don't have proper um sediment control structures in place you can easily have sediment eroded off of those landscape areas you can have pasture areas that are overg grazed um animal access cattle access directly to streams with all the trampling along a stream Corridor that exposes bare ground which in turn um exposes sediment to erosion and then along all of our major rivers um if you don't have a lot of um vegetation sort of holding the soil in place stream Banks can be a major source of sediment Why is soil so damaging when it's in water it affects everything from the way water looks to what can live in it sediment can block sunlight influencing what types of vegetation and species can thrive in that water sediment fills in waterways affecting transportation and Recreation and sediment can be a carry for other pollutants like toxic chemicals which attach to the sediment making it a double threat next are nutrients which pose an entirely different problem nitrogen and phosphorus are natural components of manure human sewage and decaying organic matter like leaves they're also present in manufactured fertilizers nutrients are applied to farm fields to feed crops and to backyard gardens they're used to Green up golf courses and Lawns they become a problem when precipitation washes nutrients off the land and into waterways once they're in water they do what they do on land enhance plant growth when we have too much nitrogen in the water your water tends to turn green and you get a lot of algae blooms when those algae blooms finally die and the algae start to decompose um they take up all the oxygen in the water and so there's a low amount of oxygen in the water which causes problems for fish and plants because they need that oxygen nutrients aren't just damaging to watery ecosystems they also pose a real risk to humans nitrates a byproduct of nitrogen are especially dangerous when we have too much nitrogen um in drinking water for instance um babies maybe infants under 6 months of age can develop something called blue baby syndrome and what that is is their blood can't carry enough oxygen and um that can cause some health problems and in fact we may have older people or people who are in um poor health that can also have that problem the risk is so serious that the Environmental Protection Agency EPA tightly regulates the levels allowed in drinking water chemicals are another class of pollutants some chemicals commonly used in manufacturing Mercury pcbs lead are toxic to the environment and humans when they reach certain levels because of the health risks these chemicals pose the EPA carefully regulates Industrial Waste special permits govern the disposal of toxic chemicals but spills accidents and improper disposal mean they still get into waterways the problem isn't just industrial either think of the toxins around your own house cleaners paint thinners pesticides oil improper disposal of just 1 gallon of oil can impair 250,000 gallons of water about the amount of water in this pool agriculture also relies heavily on chemicals like herbicides and pesticides their application needs to be carefully controlled to prevent contamination of water the list of chemicals we use every day has grown faster than our knowledge of how they interact with the environment emerging contaminants a buzzword in water circles looks at chemicals not traditionally track like caffeine over-the-counter drugs antibiotics and disinfectants a study completed by the United States Geological Survey found levels of many of these contaminants in streams across the United States now now the real work begins to see what if any effects these chemicals have on water quality pathogens are probably the most serious threat to our health pathogens are disease causing bacteria and viruses they can come from Human sewage or raw animal waste if pathogens contaminate water and aren't eliminated during treatment the tiny organisms can kill one of the real risks that anybody faces who treats water either to drink or as we do to make in a condition that can be returned to the river so fish and wildlife can use it and so other people can drink it is killing certain kinds of viral infections or bacteria cryptosporidium is a a virus that appeared in the milwa water system about 10 years ago now and killed a number of people up there the stakes don't get much higher than that knowing what's getting into the water is important but it isn't enough the next piece of the puzzle is understanding how it's getting in the water the basic hydrology or water cycle that picks up these pollutants and moves them into waterways a water cycle hydrologic cycle is the process by which water is transported from the land surface into the atmosphere and then back down to the land surface and what happens to water when it reaches the land surface there are a number of different Pathways that it can um follow you have precipitation that falls to the land surface either as rain uh snow snow or ice um you can have some evaporation or water that heads back up into the atmosphere um you can have some infiltration into the shallow subsurface where it replenishes soil moisture um plants can uptake the water at that point um transpiration can occur where the water um is released through the stems and leaves of plants back into the atmosphere um some of the water can run off the landscape to a nearby water body be it a stream uh River Pond what are Wetland area and then there's some infiltration that occurs deeper um into the subsurface and replenishes um our groundwater resources during any or all of those steps in the cycle water can come into contact with pollutants they get picked up and washed into waterways as important as the cycle itself are ways we've interfered with it the modifications we've made over time to the land's natural hydrology these changes give pollutants a straight shot into water hydrology or how water moves across the landscape um through the underlying deposits has really changed through time if we take rural areas for example um so many acres in Iowa have been tiled and what tiling does is you're inserting tiles 3 to 4 feet beneath the ground surface and what that does is it drains the landscape and then funnels the water directly to a nearby stream um so it's speeding up the movement of water um off the land surface into a nearby stream these agricultural modifications essentially short circuit or sidestep Nature's intended plumbing system that includes Wetlands vegetation and soil these natural filters slow down water's movement allowing more time for pollutant to filter out of the water it's not just agricultural modifications that shortcircuit the system urban areas with Acres of concrete steel and asphalt do the same thing in a different way I believe we now have uh what I call a runoff driven hydrology so when rain now falls on a roof on a asphalt parking lot on a concrete road it can't absorb instead of absorbing water runs over these solid surfaces picking up pollutants like sediment and oil the runoff moves back to waterways or flows down storm water drains which dump directly into streams and rivers the last piece of the puzzle we'll look at the sources of pollutants almost any place anyone or anything is a potential source of pollutants that's why water quality experts group sources into two main categories Point sources and non-point sources point source discharges are discharges that come from a fixed pipe U it'd be like a waste water treatment plant that would be discharging a waste water into the Stream Point Source pollutants used to be the biggest water quality problem in the United States the Clean Water Act of 1972 addressed the problem by laying out strict regulations controlling levels of discharge the ACT effectively plugged the pipes now the final frontier for water quality is controlling nonpoint source discharges Nonpoint there is no one particular pipe that would be able to be identified as the discharge it is just kind of an Overland flow of the water that goes into little creeks and and drainage ways that ultimately end up in the river regulations that worked so well on the point source pollution problem are next to impossible to implement on a case-by casee basis making the non-point Source problem much tougher to solve so there they are uses practices pollutants hydrology sources I know you're wondering what that final piece of the puzzle is well stick around with all the these puzzle pieces to consider pieces that are always shifting and changing how are water quality problems ever addressed good question one many experts are answering with a powerful tool called The Watershed approach it essentially frames individual pieces of a specific water quality problem providing a perspective on the puzzle The Watershed approach Narrows the physical scope of a specific water quality problem allowing experts to isolate and examine the pieces of the puzzle in play particular pollutants their sources the area hydrology let's explore more about this important framework um a watershed is the land area that drains to a body of water be it a lake a stream a pond and watersheds vary in size for example the Mississippi River Watershed drains 40% of the entire United States that massive Watershed can be broken down into several large water sheds which can be broken down even further into smaller Weds scaling all the way down to areas that maybe just a few square miles in size by narrowing the scope of a problem it's easier to zero in on the threats to an individual water body and to trace the sources of those threats what's going on in the Watershed what are potential sources of pollutants that might be contributing to that wed knowing the potential sources of pollutants the different land uses and practices playing out within a watershed gives everyone a heads up on what pollutants to watch for got a lot of Farmland in your Watershed expect nutrients from fertilizers Industrial Development expect chemicals residential areas expect nutrients sediment household chemicals more than just a theory The Watershed approach takes a practical approach to solving real water quality problems let's look at it in action Winterset is a small community in central Iowa facing a big water quality problem nitrates well nitrates can come from several different sources in our water um Approximately 80% of our Watershed is uh crop land so we're fairly confident that we know it's it's fertilizer runoff uh one option is to put in a nitrate removal addition to our plant here and it would cost us approximately $800,000 to make that addition uh what we would rather do is our other option which is do work in the Watershed to try and solve the problem there that would consist of constructed Wetlands ponds buffer strips um we've had modeling done that shows us that with as little as three to five wet lands in our watered we should be able to cut our nitrate levels below the maximum contaminant level we're we're a pretty closed Watershed small and manageable from all indication once we get these Wetlands constructed we'll see results almost immediately it's not real Hightech but it's it's something that's proven to work in the past the Watershed approach allowed experts to identify the pollutant nitrates identify the source Farm runoff and then work with the watersheds hydrology to come up with the solution pretty slick huh but what if your water shed isn't small and manageable let's look at the nitrate problem excess Nutri playing out on a much larger scale at the end of the Mississippi River's long journey lies the Gulf of Mexico and the dead zone the dead zone is a seasonal phenomenon a huge area where oxygen levels are too low to support Aquatic Life experts believe that excess nutrients like nitrogen washing down the river and into the Gulf are responsible for the dead zone remember the Mississippi River carries water drained from 40% of the United States water that moves through farmland and urban areas alike with such a large Watershed it's not as simple to pinpoint the sources of the excess nutrients most often the blame is put on Farmers a lot of people would like to say that the farmers in the Upper Midwest are to blame because there certainly have been some concerns about runoff from Farm Fields but the issue is much more complex than that you can't just point your finger at One Source you have to look at the number of people that live within the Mississippi River Basin Farmland isn't the only source of nutrients it's only the most obvious Lawns Gardens and golf courses also all use fertilizers um certainly as As Cities grow that's going to contribute to more nutrients in the water uh you have um water uh wastewater treatment facilities that actually convert waste um from ammonia into nitrates and that's legal and they discharge that into the water and so if we're going to solve the issue which we all have an interest in solving that issue we can't just look at one piece of the pie some proposals ask farmers to considerably reduce the amount of nutrients they use but if we all contribute to the problem is it fair to expect Farmers to Bear the burden of fixing it a tough problem to solve especially on this large scale as the size of the Watershed increases so do the number of potential pollutant sources and the number of competing Solutions some water quality problems aren't only defined by the borders of a watershed political and economic boundaries also shape the problem manure management is one of those problems in big pork producing states like North Carolina and Iowa nothing gets folks fired up faster than a good hog lot debate record high nitrates antibiotics in our water we've had half the beaches in the state at State lakes close we've had a whole series of fish kills uh throughout the state uh Iowans want the issue of water quality uh and the negative impact of uh animal confinements on water quality be to be addressed to some they're the sweet smell of money to others the smell is anything but sweet large animal confinements represent a major shift in farming from small family operations raising a few hundred head to large confinements raising thousands of animals at a time critics say the sheer concentration of animals makes the Farms major environmental hazards to the air the land and you guessed it the water most of the stink at least where water quality is concerned centers on the way hog confinements manage manure a potential water pollutant the Farms raise thousands of animals which produce tons of manure the most common way to manage the manure is to store it in Earth and lagoons uh the lagoons uh can uh seep into uh groundwater and they can spill over which has happened from time to time the threats from Storage the spills and the leaks aren't the only problems farmers use manure as fertilizer for their fields and whether the manure comes from a large operation or a small one it has to be applied correctly you know you can be a small farmer and still screw up the ground water we know that from history uh but the the one factor which uh in which scale does make it more difficult to protect the water quality is that when you concentrate a lot of animals in one place then it becomes uh economically difficult to spread that manure over enough land so that you don't over apply it and that in turn of course uh is a is a threat to U uh to the water quality the more Hogs you have the more manure you have and the more land you need to absorb it over application results in runoff which can put two major pollutants right into the water excess nutrients or Worse pathogens both of which are found in animal manure in Iowa manure runoff is thought to be a major contributing source of bacteria which forced Beach closings during the summer so if these operations are such a threat why doesn't the State just shut them down two reasons the first is money hog production has a 12 billion economic impact in Iowa an impact the state can't afford to lose the second reason not every operation is a threat to water quality in fact many farmers are taking the proper steps to protect water acting as good stewards of our natural resources Alan Bert and his family run a large Hog operation in central Iowa and take protecting water very seriously my role as a farmer with the water is first of all there's no more water ever being created what is here is here and so for me to poison or contaminate the water that runs down through our creeks and rivers wouldn't be a smart thing to do Bert says his operation goes the extra mile to keep manure on the land and out of the water we try to maintain a small amount of tillage so that our manure doesn't leave the farm uh we put up grass waterways buffer strips we plant a lot of trees all of which are examples of recommended best management practices or bmps unfortunately not every farmer uses those bmps because of political and economic influences there are no Simple Solutions to this problem legislation regulation management changes new technologies they're all options that could help keep animal manure from threatening water when it comes to Water Quality Farms get a lot of the focus but urban areas contribute their fair share of water pollutants too all the puzzle pieces are in play uses practices pollutants sources hydrology this piece of the puzzle is easiest to identify in an urban setting the shift from grassy natural areas to Pavement and asphalt everywhere Urban resour resource conservationist Wayne Peterson says that this is one piece of the puzzle we can affect dramatically by employing Green development the definition of green development that I like to use is development that does not create or add negative environmental impacts I believe that we will see designs of new development start to incorporate more focus on how are we going to manage water and how is water going to move off of this land landscape in a post-development um setting Peterson envisions a return to a more natural hydrology for urban areas having water moving through the system properly in a sustainable way is kind of the like the foundation of an ecosystem and if you've got a if you've got a bad foundation on a building it's probably going to crumple over time and if you don't manage water properly which is the foundation of the ecosystem I believe all other aspects of that ecosystem will tend to unravel I know we're not going to turn the whole world back into Prairie of course but I do think we can understand how water might once have moved through this this natural or native ecosystem and I think we can design new developments that will mimic the way that landscape functioned even if it doesn't look like it once did knowing which piece of the puzzle to Target to create the greatest change can have the greatest effect on your problem which brings us to the final piece of the puzzle you individual responsibility for water quality is the key to solving this puzzle awareness of the problem isn't enough it's only when that new knowledge is put into action that will begin to see a difference in our water's quality an idea these kids have taken to Heart they're the environmental Club from Davenport West their City sits on the bank of the Mississippi River but they monitor nearby streams checking for nitrates us and the water's General Health I was curious to know how Iowa's water like how clean it was since we're drinking it the club reports their results to a Statewide citizen-based group monitoring water's quality it's really important to get involved in this sort of thing and most people they wouldn't think of doing something like this people are AG to know that I'm doing something that helps the environment it's a good feeling it doesn't matter where you live don't just sit there make a splash get involved identify which pieces of the water quality puzzle are in play then take action change a personal practice monitor a stream educate a neighbor it's up to you the most important piece when it comes to solving the water quality puzzle [Music] this program was funded by the Roy J Carver charitable trust the US Department of Education star schools program and Iowa public television [Music]