Any discussion about sources of water pollution and contamination that pertain to water can be divided into two main categories: direct and indirect.

These may also be referred to as point and nonpoint contamination. In both cases, the descriptive word applied to the contamination type references its amount of direct contact with the water source.

Direct, or point contact, is something introduced right into the water. Indirect, or nonpoint contact, is contamination that occurs elsewhere and then finds its way into a water source, generally by natural means.

Point contamination involving surface water has typically gotten the most attention from the media; articles on water pollution will frequently highlight oil spills out at sea and similar scandals. These are the most visible type of water pollution.

The terrible reality that we see in front of our eyes is not always the fullest extent of pollution, however. As bad as oil and chemical spills are (and they are bad), much of the worst pollution goes unnoticed by most people because it occurs underground, affecting groundwater aquifers.

Groundwater is a prime nonpoint contamination target, which occurs in many ways and as we discuss the issue of how to stop water pollution, the best way to do it is to attack indirect pollution of groundwater, by finding the sources of water pollution.

Groundwater accounts for nearly 90% of the world’s drinking water. It’s especially difficult tracking nonpoint contamination because many times it occurs naturally when small amounts of pollutant find their way together and the overall effect becomes dangerous.

This means that regulations must be stepped up. If small amounts of pesticides are sprayed over orchards by a crop duster, for example, each individual dose of pesticide might be perfectly up to code. Then after it rains, these pesticides become sources of water pollution by draining slowly together until they finally run through the soil and reach an underground aquifer.

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Pesticides are a relatively mild example. Rain can fall anywhere and anytime it wishes, thereby washing pollutants into major water sources. These pollutants can come from construction sites, which contain heavy metal content as well as chemical elements.

They can also come from something as innocuous as rainwater washing across asphalt-this is known as “urban runoff” and is actually somewhat poisonous. (Not a very comforting thought when we consider the prevalence of asphalt in modern life.) Then, we have more typical sources of water pollution: major corporations dumping toxic waste. Still, is it always those big-business bad guys ruining our lives with their sludge? The answer may surprise you.

Extreme forms of contamination often come from landfills. Sometimes nuclear waste has been buried by the government and, when mixed with rainwater, this becomes a very toxic runoff. But the worst and most dangerous landfills are those created by ordinary people.

You and I throw garbage away without thinking about where it goes-but in reality, it goes into our faucets. Facts about sources of water pollution are disturbing, partly because we are to blame. Rainwater runs through our garbage, becoming a thick, grimy juice of toxins in our water sources. Your baby’s diaper doesn’t biodegrade.

Old tyres don’t biodegrade. Plastic shopping bags don’t biodegrade either, and best of all, everything made of plastic originates from petroleum, or natural gas. We drink these residues every day.

We also eat residues. In 1962, researcher Rachel Carson wrote a groundbreaking book called Silent Spring in which she blew the lid off of lax government restrictions and showed contamination to the world.

For the first time, people became aware of what they were doing to the environment as they read the facts about water pollution, including this one: a stalk of celery, if grown in soil that has been exposed to polluted water, can magnify the pollutant in its stem many times over as it grows. That’s the ugly truth about sources of water pollution-whether direct or indirect, eventually they affect us all.