Newspaper Page Text
Griffin Daily News
Pollution Problem: 2
The Sea's Great Gift To Man Is Fresh Water
Part Two:
The Crisis on the Horizon
Without water there could be
jS *. ?
Jtest
\
r~^^-T--J-'TT;-------ni7 l MW^ :;;i, >. y ’ ' ■ ■ '-
I*”- ... ' ' : • • <
' - y-
* -X .. ' , ....
Work Os Vandals
(Griffin Daily News Staff Photo)
Roy Hill of the Griffin Kiwanis Club inspects what’s left of a ticket booth at the
rear entrance of the Spalding Fairgrounds. It was destroyed by vandals. Several
hundred dollars will be required to replace the structure.
Wilkes Says Carter Lags
On Corrections Revamp
ATLANTA (UPl)—Corrections
Director Robert Carter has
shown little interest in following
through on a reorganization
plan for his department, State
Budget Director Wilson Wilkes
told a House committee meet
ing Wednesday.
Wilkes’ office did a thorough
study of the Corrections De
partment and drew up plans for
reorganizing it before former
Director Asa Kelley resigned.
CARD OF THANKS
Our heartfelt thanks to all
who extended contorting sym
pathy and help in our recent
sorrow. For the beautiful serv
ice, floral offerings; and
other kindnesses we are deep
ly grateful. Special thanks
go out to neighbors and to
The Baptist Tabernacle.
Family of
Lena Dell Williams.
rjVvlf / For tin bright-eyed happy
Xgl graduate, the bright-idea gifts
I V *° ina^e h er *h e happiest, see
NggW-' 'Jr- \ our go-get-'em gifts. The selection
Z ’ s fresh and exciting as the new
I J' X honorees futures. Come see, come
/ y £i ve eute happiness gifts!
Sincere Best Wishes to All Grads!
m mabo r=i
20
Thursday, May 15, 1969
no life of any kind on earth. In
a sense water is even more
precious than oxygen, the “gas
The report said the Corrections
Department had “no functional
organization.’’
Wilkes also told the House
Penal Reform Study Committee
that SIO,OOO of the $250,000 the
legislature earmarked to begin
a work incentive program In
state prisons has been used by
the Corrections Department to
upgrade health standa'ds in
county prison camps instead.
Tile committee has begun
hearings on the Corrections De
partment and said it would
make a thorough study of its
finances. Members earlier said
they also would look into per
sonnel policies and prison sys
tem regulations.
Tlie budget director told com
mittee members that it would
cost nothing to Implement the
plan for a more efficient organ
ization in the department, but
Carter has showm no interest.
He also told them that expen
ditures of the department have
risen more than $7 million, to
$11.6 million, this fiscal year.
There has been an Increase in
the prison population, and the
cost of supporting prisoners has
risen from $3.13 per day three
years ago to $5.34 per day now.
Wilkes said Carter asked his
office for permission to spend
the SIO,OOO on upgrading health
of life.” For without water
there would be no green plants,
and green plants supply the
’ standards tn county camps He
said the $250,000 appropriated
by the legislature for the incen-
1 tive program—a major goal of
1 Gov. Lester Maddox’s penal re
■ form measures—was included
1 in the over-all operations bud
-1 get of the department.
Carter has said that $250,000
1 is not enough to implement the
1 incentive plan statewide.
Under the program, a prison
er with good behavior would be
paid for work he performed,
and the money held In trust for
him or sent to his dependents.
Wilkes said he did not know
what it would take to get the
program started.
BA R B S
By PHIL PASTORET
Just heard about the proud
seagull papa who passed out
cigars marked “it’s a buoy.”
• • *
An efficiency expert is
a fellow who makes barbe
cue sauce with the char
coal-starter flavor built-in,
to eliminate the whole bit
with the grilL j
oxygen In the air we breathe.
Scientists believe life on earth
originated In the primitive seas
long before there was more
than a trace of oxygen in the
atmosphere. Oxygen, and life’s
dependence on it, appeared only
after the evolution of plants.
The blood of animals, includ
ing man, still is salty solution
similar to sea water. The sea
still surges in the circulation
systems of land as well as
marine creatures. Most living
things are mainly water.
The sea is at once the
supplier of fresh water to the
land and of oxygen to the air.
More than 70 per cent of our
oxygen supply, according to
Cornell’s Dr. Lamont Cole,
comes from microscopic green
plants in the sea which, like the
plants of land, consume carbon
dioxide with the help of solar
energy and cast off oxygen as a
waste product.
Destroyed Vegetation
With his bulldozers and
concrete and asphalt city
building, road-building, urbaniz
ing man has destroyed oxygen
producing vegetation over large
continental areas.
However, enough plant life,
the phytoplankton, remains in
the oceans to keep the oxygen
content of the atmosphere fairly
stable at about 20 per eent. But
man is polluting even the
oceans, with what consequences
he does not know.
In the solar system, at least,
earth appears to be uniquely
blessed with water in great
quantities. Only in the case of
Mars does there appear to be
any faint possibility that anoth
er planet of the sun’s family
r ——' \
you are cORD m \
\ the second annual \
\ SPRING FLOWER SHOW \
I presented BY \
I \ tn \TED CWBS 01 \ |i|
\ the federate coW y I
\ griffin and SP I
\ r ZT comp w
commerce ban
I MAIN OFFIGb l
uayi^’ 969 \
\ n ,y A ND SUNDAY >A I
I SATURDA 5;00 p. W . I
I \
.... " - = -7-JI
has or ever has had any liquid
water at all.
On earth there is a prodigious
amount of water—326 million
cubic miles of it. Os this hard to
conceive quantity, 317 million
cubic miles are in the seas
which cover 71 per cent of the
globe.
Most of the rest consists of
“frozen assets” of fresh water
locked up in glaciers and the
polar icecaps.
Water Sports
Man, of course, is primarily
concerned with available fresh
water, the stuff he can drink or
moisten his yards and crops
with, or use in cooking,
washing, and ustry, or as a
medium for harboring trout and
other fish which it is fun to
catch.
For recreation men do, of
course, swarm to the sea
beaches, and the estuaries, and
release their tensions In many
salt water sports—surf swim
ming and fishing, scuba diving,
sailing, and lolling on the sand
in the sun. They transport most
of their goods in world
commerce upon the salty
oceans.
But the sea’s great gifts to
man is fresh water. The sun
annually distills (evaporates)
80,000 cubic miles of fresh
water from the oceans and
15,000 cubic miles from the
land.
At all times about 95,000 cubic
miles of water are moving
between earth and sky. What
goes up subsequently comes
down. This, crudely put, is the
hydrological, or water, cycle.
This water, as rain, snow.
hail, or sleet, comes down all
over the world. Most of it falls
back into the oceans. But a lot
of it falls on the land. The
United States gets about 30
inches a year, or 4.3 trillion
gallons a day. Roughly 70 per
cent of this is sent back up into
the air as vapor. This includes
the water used by plants.
It seems silly to talk of
polluting the ocean. But it is
happening. DDT has been found
in marine creatures every,
where. And if the plant of the
ocean is jeopardized, so is the
oxygen supply on which all life
depends.
The Torrey Canyon oil spill of
1967 and more recent ones,
Including the calamity off Santa
Barbara, Calif., were disasters.
Animal and bird life in the
spoiled areas may never be the
same Perhaps, just perhaps,
these calamities were strictly
local.
In any event, they might have
been worse, given man’s
capacity for unintentional de
struction. Suppose the Torrey
Canyon had been loaded not
with oil but with herbicides.
Cole asks the question: Would
photosynthesis, the process by
which plants produce oxygen,
have been wiped out in the
Forth Sea?
A few such accidents could
leave man gasping not in a
matter of generations, Cole
suggests, but in a matter of
years.
An alarmist notinnp \,sslbly
But those who have looked
hardest at what man has done
and is doing to his environment
have come to expect the worst.
Regional Shortages
Some authorities hold that for
the United States, at least,
there is no water crisis. Says
the National Academy of
Sciences, “There is no nation
wide shortage and no imminent
danger of one.”
It goes on to say, however,
that “there are serious regional
shortages of usable water,
many of which are becoming
critical because of short-sighted
planning or pollution of fresh
water supplies.”
Nace recently pleaded for
preservation of a resource
which he said is “perhaps the
most valuable” humanity pos
sesses. This is what the
hydrologists call ground water.
It has been stored by nature
over the millenia in subter
ranean "aquifers” consisting of
porous rock, gravel, sand, and
sediments.
According to Nace, 97 per cent
of all fresh liquid water on the
continents is contained in
aquifers which hold “many
times more water than can be
stored in all the surface
reservoirs that will ever be
built” by man. They are
"buried treasure.”
In arid regions they constitute
the chief source of water. This
nation, Nace said, need never
run out of fresh water If it
cooperates with nature to
maintain its aquifers.
Industrial Wastes
Ground water supplies are
menaced in many ways. They
can be killed by over pumping
which results in subsidence and
compaction o f subsurface
materials to the point where
they become impervious and
hence ..seler - forr.i.orage.
They also can be made unfit
for use by pollution. Encroach-
ment of salt water into pumped
coastal aquifers Is one source of
pollution. Septic tanks do their
bit. A ‘her source is the
growing practice of under
ground disposal of industrial
wastes.
One of man’s new and weird
pollutants is simply warm
water. Most of the water taken
by industry and cities from
streams is used for cooling and
then poured back.
According to scientists, many
forms of aquatic animal and
plant life are threatened by the
great tonnage of heated water
from power plants, nuclear or
foal-fired, which is being
spewed into rivers, lakes and
coastal waters.
If the problem is one for the
present, it is even more so for
the future.
A study reported by the
geological survey showed that
in 60 of the undeveloped
countries of Africa, Asia, and
Latin America 90 per cent of
the population depends on water
supplies "that are inadequate or
unsafe.”
The shortage in all countries,
according to Nace, is not of
water but of watTWorks to
make the available water
usable.
The United States, with tough
regional water problems of Its
own, is trying to help less
fortunate nations with theirs. In
1967 It created the office of
water for peace in the State
Department. This agency is
concerned with a host of
projects ranging in scope from
provision of drinkable water on
a local scale to large river-basin
development programs.