The True Colors of Water

By Shanel Little | VOX Staff

Photo by Shanel Little | VOX Staff

I get really excited whenever I pay a visit to the beautiful sea God created. To feel the sand between my toes and hear the waves crash onto the shore makes me appreciate what nature has to offer. I’ve traveled to several beaches and feel very comfortable and at home when I’m there. I remember one beach located on the Puerto Rican island of Culebra. The water my family and I swam in was so clear that we could see what lay on the depths of the ocean from nearly 20 feet away. I could not say the same about Panama City Beach, where the water was very dark and murky. I could barely see my own feet!

I never really paid attention to or cared about why the colors of the ocean were so different until my father explained it to me when he and my mom returned home from the Bahamas.

“You’ve got to see the water over there MeeMee,” my dad said excitedly. “It looks like pool water. It’s just that clear. The tour guide told me that the water is so pretty because they don’t let it get polluted by factories.”

Whether through factories or farms, virtually all water pollution can be traced back to humans. So it’s up to us to try to find ways to keep our water clean and safe enough for animals and plants to live in and for people to use.

The Problem
The Columbia Encyclopedia states that some 370,000 manufacturing factories use large amounts of freshwater to get rid of waste. People litter along the shore of many beaches and lakes everyday. Even the plastic that holds a pack of soda cans together can harm the nearby wildlife. Pollutants can come from fields used for farming in the form of pesticides and fertilizers that impair the animals and change the natural water concentration. There are even ways pollution can reach water from our own homes! Whatever we pour down our drains always ends up in major water sources.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), all this trash, which can be anything from chemicals to raw sewage, ends up in stream, lakes and oceans. It doesn’t take too long for animals and plants to be affected. Many of them end up dying from oil spills and other mishaps or are affected by factory chemicals and give birth to mutated offspring. And they’re not the only ones that suffer. The WWF says: “The World Health Organization reports that 25-30 percent of all hospital admissions worldwide are connected to waterborne bacterial and parasitic conditions, with 60 percent of infant deaths caused by water infections.” This should be enough to call for concern and action.

Doing Something about It
There are things everyone, including teens, can do in order to help lower the levels of water pollution. Educate your friends and family about the harm litter and damaging waste cause to oceans. Clean Ocean Action warns that everything poured down a drain eventually ends up in the ocean. You can also help save water by using less of it. Try not to leave water running for too long when you brush your teeth or take a bath. When you visit the beach and see nasty pollution such as garbage slicks or dead fish, report it to the appropriate agencies, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Clean Ocean Action (COA), a coalition working to protect waterways, or simply pick up the trash and directly help the environment around you.

Visit the Web sites of your favorite products and research whether they use eco-friendly ways to create and manufacture their goods. If they don’t, write them letters urging them to change their environmental policies. Some Web sites you can start with are www.epa.gov and www.treehuggers.com. Write to your legislators to force owners of factories and manufacturing facilities and farmers to search for safer ways to dispose of wastes and chemicals. If you really want to get involved you can get a group together and petition for legislators to fund research projects that help find better ways to get rid of waste.

We need to appreciate the water we have in the world and do what we can to keep it in its most natural, beneficial and beautiful state. God blessed us with a world to live in and watch over. The least we can do is make sure its water is clean enough to swim in.

“The water of the ocean is supposed to reflect the color of the sky,” my mom once told me. I hope that one day we can work to make this come true.