water Archives - Science Connected Magazine

Empowering Communities to Examine Lead Exposure with Crowd the Tap

May 17, 2019May 23, 2019 Science Connectedcommunity health, drinking water, lead pollution, water, water pollution

By Bradley Allf Lead pipes for transporting water have been a fixture of modern civilization for more than two thousand years. Ancient Romans channeled water into homes and bathhouses through lead piping. In fact, the Latin word for lead, plumbum, is where we get the English word “plumbing.” Yet we have also long recognized that lead can have a serious impact on our health. Vitrivius, who lived during the first century BCE, wrote at length about the physical harm caused by lead exposure, concluding that “water should therefore on no…

Environment

Pharmaceutical Waste Damages Aquatic Ecosystems

July 6, 2016July 5, 2016 Science Connectedecology, pharmaceuticals, polution, wastewater treatment, water, water contamination

By Shayna Keyles, @shaynakeyles In a society where nearly 70 percent take at least one prescription drug and the pharmaceutical and biochemical industries spend billions of dollars each year to create new products, it is no surprise that a large amount of pharmaceutical wastewater is produced each year. But what happens to this waste, and what impact does it have on our environment? In early 2014, researchers with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) surveyed 59 headstreams in the US Piedmont ecoregion to answer just those questions. These streams were…