It is very important to check the health of your local water bodies, as they can impact the water you drink and the well-being of the organisms that live around you. I decided to take a look at Hayward's water quality issues, as this is the city where I live in.

A water quality issue that I have observed in Hayward is an issue of water clarity, and this is due to soil runoff water. This is basically just agricultural runoff from neighboring farmlands that has been polluted and is entering the groundwater that ultimately affects the drinking water quality of my city. There are two major farms near my city, and the agricultural runoff likely comes from these farms. Because this is a known source, it is a point source pollution. Although the limits for turbidity are within safe levels, it is still important to check up on them to make sure that the pollution doesn’t intensify. The agricultural runoff typically has a high chemical levels from the herbicides and pesticides that were placed in them. These pesticides are meant to boost the growth of crops, so they are not entirely toxic to humans in low doses. If this builds up, then there may be some problems for human health. 

Agricultural runoff has already created some impacts within my community. In some lakes and streams, there is evidence of eutrophication. Eutrophication is when the fertilizers present in the agricultural runoff creates extra algal growth in water bodies. This is because the two main ingredients in fertilizers - Nitrogen and Potassium - are also good fertilizers for algal growth. However, the algae only require the nutrients in low doses, so the outpour of nutrients into the stream rapidly boosts algae growth as well. If the algae grows uncontrollably, then it blocks oxygen and sunlight from reaching the bottom of the water body, creating a dead zone without any life. This phenomenon has been evident in areas near where I live. Some of these algae can also be toxic (if they are blue green algae, commonly known as cyanobacteria). 

This issue is impacting the environment by killing some macroinvertebrate and other insect species in the water bodies. Pesticides are toxic to insects, and are therefore toxic to the aquatic macroinvertebrates. This impacts the ecosystem and food webs that exist within each water body. If the macroinvertebrates aren’t able to reproduce, then their predators won’t have any food, totally disbalancing the food chains. 

A human health issue that could potentially arise is skin problems. Pesticides are known to cause allergic reactions to human beings, and they often can break out into bumps if they consume the pesticide, potentially by drinking it. 

One more human health issue is the chloroform that could be present in the water is known to cause risks to the liver. Some pesticides cause headaches, blurred vision, abdominal pain, and vomiting. 

One example of a water pollution reduction system is to implement conservation tilling in farms. This form of farming reduces the amount of soil tilling, which reduces the erosion amount and soil disturbances. This leads to less wastewater reaching the groundwater.

Another water pollution reduction system is to plant field buffers. These field buffers are some trees that filter out the nutrients that reach the end of the fields. This way those nutrients will be absorbed by the plants and prevent it from reaching the water bodies, thus reducing nutrient pollution in rivers. . 

The last water pollution reduction system is to have small ponds where the agricultural runoff empties out into for it to not empty out into rivers or lakes that have animals and are supplied to humans. This way, all of the runoff just goes into an artificial pond where it won’t be affecting anything. The water is then treated here sometimes to make sure that it doesn’t leech into the ground as well. 

Ultimately, there are some issues with agricultural or soil runoff water pollution in my city, but even though it isn’t causing any major issues at the moment. They are still building up in the waterways in my city, and in order to prevent a future issue, it is still important to invest in water pollution reduction practices.

I highly recommend searching for the governmental data in your region and perhaps going to the water bodies yourself to test them out. This report was much longer than usual, but I really hope you found out the importance of water quality helpful :) In EarthEcho, you can log data in the international water monitor database to check with citizen science!