The Rural Voice, 2001-04, Page 12Attention:
SHEEP FARMERS
Atlas Tanning
is accepting
Wool
as usual
Custom Tanning
Available
Call 519-523-4595
Atlas Tanning
1 mi. south of Blyth on
Hwy. 4 behind
The Old Mill
Leather & Woolen
Specialist
SCHMIDT'S
FARM DRAINAGE
1990 LTD.
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• EROSION CONTROL
• BACKHOEING &
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519-338-3484
"We install
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8 THE RURAL VOICE
Robert Mercer
Groundwater update... a disturbing report
I started this article before I read
the March issue of The Rural Voice
in which there were two articles on
the use of water. My first reaction
was to kill my article on water
contamination
until I realized
that it slotted in
well with the
approach taken
by the other
writers.
Keith
Roulston's
articles on the
aquifer surveys
indicates that
policy makers
are beginning to
take the
management of
our fresh water
supply seriously. The article is good
news.
As much as my interest in the past
has ever been over the continued
availability of fresh water to meet
rural and urban needs, I am now
concerned at the rising threat to these
limited resources by contamination
outside agriculture as well as from
farm chemicals.
When people talk about
contamination of groundwater
reserves it is often associated with
pesticides and fertilizers. However,
the vast extent of industrial
groundwater contamination is often
overlooked. Not so in a recent report
that details the fresh water crisis
looming worldwide as demands
expand and fresh clean supplies of
water diminish.
The toxic brew of multiple
pesticides and nitrogen fertilizers in
soils is reported as a major
contributor to groundwater
contamination. However, any
discussions on this topic must also
address the often irreversible effects
of Volatile Organic Compounds
(VOCs) that are found in abundance
in the groundwater supplies to highly
populated areas of North America
and elsewhere.
VOCs are often associated with
the use of the automobile and the
petroleum industry, and it is from the
Toxic brew
endangers
groundwater
•
underground tanks that hold these
chemicals that much of the damage to
our soils and water supplies is
happening. Many of these tanks were
installed three decades ago and in the
U.S. the EPA has found that an
estimated 100,000 of these tanks are
leaking. In the UK Shell Oil has
publicly stated that up to one-third of
its 1,100 stations have contaminated
soil or groundwater.
It is no wonder then, that
petroleum and its associated
chemicals such as toluene, benzene
and the additive MTBE are as a class
quoted as "the most common
category of groundwater
contaminants found in aquifers in the
U.S." (In Santa Monica, California
half the city's 'wells have been closed
because of MTBE contamination.)
It may also come as a surprise to
learn that the high-tech industry is not
as squeaky clean as it may look on
the surface. The industry uses VOCs
as chlorinated solvents and stores the
used waste in underground holding
tanks. In the Silicon Valley local
authorities have found 85 per cent of
the tanks inspected had cracks.
As of February 2000 there were
386,000 confirmed leaks from
underground storage tanks in the U.S.
These are, in part, the very tanks that
contain waste that is too hazardous to
send to land fill.
In the years ahead we need an
expanding supply of fresh clean
water as populations increase and
fresh water demand for food and
industrial uses clash. We are
however, by mismanagement, and in
cases, by total ignorance of the long
term consequences, polluting the very
sources of our major water supply.
And once polluted they often stay
that way.
As 97 per cent of the planet's
liquid (not frozen) fresh water is ,
stored in aquifers, their health is our
health. Let's hope we don't die of
thirst before we come to grips with
what we are doing to our most
important resource. Check it out at
www.worldwatch.org 0
Robert Mercer was editor of the
Broadwater Market Letter and a farm
commentator in Ontario for 25 years.