point me in the right direction?

[bookoholics]

I'm working on my Gold Award for Girl Scouts. My project is centered around educating the community on water pollution and acting to clean things up. I'm holding a town-wide ocean-side clean-up event in about a week

Comments

Good luck!

[teamtriceratops]

I know lots of us feel dubiously about the EPA these days, but they allegedly enforce some laws that concern water safety, such as the Fed'l Clean Drinking Water Act. You can read about that here: http://www.epa.gov/safewater/sdwa/index.html

As an environmental attorney, the above act doesn't have the teeth it used to, but you can see the substance is there.

The Clean Water Act of 1972, which consumer advocate Ralph Nader was involved in, similarly could help you.

Finally, check out the Superfund365 site: http://superfund365.org/.
It shows areas around our country (a new one each day) that are so polluted (usually by private parties) that the federal government has to declare them Superfund sites (under CERCLA) and use tax dollars to clean up the site. Often these sites involve pollution in the water table or waterways.

Re: Good luck!

[teamtriceratops]

Also, non-profits will probably have good info that you are looking for, in terms of horror stories, and I think you should definitely consider including the Exxon Valdez spill:

Photos of the spill: http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/gallery_gallery.php?RECORD_KEY(gallery_index)=joinphotogal_id,gallery_id,photo_id&joinphotogal_id(gallery_index)=171&gallery_id(gallery_index)=12&photo_id(gallery_index)=106

and the wiki article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill

[scaredxasxyou]

is that a Lloyd Hughes photograph?

[shapeshft]

Don't forget non-point source pollution! It's the nation's largest water quality problem.

[anny61087ac]

You can check out Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" and John McPhee's "The Control of Nature". There are sections in this book that talk about water pollution.
http://ladpw.org/PRG/StormWater/Page_36.cfm
That's from the LA Country Public Works website. It's information on stormwater pollution [another form of water pollution]

Hope these help :D

[kooshinni]

This was posted over at naturalliving a while ago: Our oceans are turning into plastic... are we? I remember it being quite an interesting read.