Human Influence/ Concerns/ Threats

     Many serious problems are affecting the quality of the freshwater in our area and all over the world. First is pollution of many different kinds such as runoff from fertilization of crops or lawns. Most people do not think they are causing any damage, but when it rains heavy all the fertilizer goes in to the water cycle. Another type of pollution is acid rain. The acid rain is also very serious because when rain with acidity of 4 or 3.5 gets into the freshwater it will make the pH of the bodies of water go down also. When this happens the animals in the water that cannot survive in the conditions die; therefore throwing off the food web of that ecosystem. The acid rain is caused by fumes from things such as car exhaust and factory’s smoke stack emitting fumes into the atmosphere. One of the ways factories tried to fix there problem was to build taller smoke stack so that the emmitions would go over the clouds. This plan worked for the area around the factory, but hundreds of miles away other areas and people were getting showered with acid rain.