Environmental Issues

The aquatic ecosystem is known to perform various important environmental functions. These functions include recycling of nutrients and minerals, purification of water, maintenance of water flows, ground water conservation. The ecosystem acts as a habitat for wild life as well. The rapid increase of population in most parts of the US and the expansion of industrial and commercial sectors have led to various forms of pollution that affects the water surface, which results from water exposure to fertilizers, pesticides and fossil fuels (National Research 1992). In addition to this, the disposal of sewage into the sea waters has increased. The growing number of population and harmful human activities also led to increased water consumption, thus reducing the flows which could dilute the sewage.

    Human activities in agriculture, forestry and urban construction have led to increased sediment delivery, resulted in greater turbidity and sedimentation in downstream channel lakes and reservoirs. This has reduced the water capacity, negatively affecting the habitats for fish and wild life. Drainage of wetlands has also made the aquatic organisms become extinct and to some extent made drinking water, swimming and fishing impossible.

    Following the challenges that the water system is facing, there has been an urgent need to restore the aquatic ecosystem since it affects very many activities. Individuals in public and private sectors have worked to support the aquatic restoration, which presupposes making the ecosystem almost the same as it was before the damage done to it. The US committee on restoration of the aquatic life sees the process possible even though it may seem impractical. For instance, a river that has been affected and lost some water inhabitants like fish, leeches, turtles etc. could be restored through transporting water to the river and introducing fish to inhabit it (Laws 2000). The committee sees future preventive measures as a way of restoring the aquatic life. These measures should bring more benefit than just one hydrologic cycle, and if they had been taken earlier the waters would not have been polluted so much.

    The restoration of the aquatic ecosystem may be accomplished in several stages, since a particular ecosystem functions separately and may be restored even when other ecosystems deviate from normal conditions. An example of this is potable water, which can lead to partial ecological restoration and provides significant ecological advantages even though full restoration might not been attained. Bearing in mind the effects of the disturbed aquatic life, the committee advocates a large-scale aquatic ecosystem restoration program to be implemented to regain and protect the physical, chemical and biological integrity of the surface water. The program should work to solve acute pollution problems stop the decline in wildlife populations
restore types of wildlife habitats, the priority being the endangered species.

The committee recommends that a national aquatic ecosystem restoration strategy be developed for the USA. The program would set specific national restoration goals for wetlands, rivers, streams and lakes and provide a national assessment process to monitor if the process is being achieved. The program should have the governmental and non-governmental bodies working together to achieve the set goals. The strategy as proposed by the committee should include four elements natural restoration goals and assessment strategies for each eco-region principles for priority setting and decision making changes in the policies and the program for the Federal and State agencies to emphasize restoration innovation in financing and use of land and water markets (Gosselink  Mitsch 2000).

Achieving the set goals, however, requires the cooperation of the government, non-governmental bodies and cities authorities and calls for planning, leadership, federal funding accompanied by proper investment. The program should be put in place under the leadership of a single responsible organization. With these aspects considered, restoration would be made simple and effective.

    There are financial constraints, that is why there is a need for the Congress to establish a Natural Aquatic Ecosystem Restoration Trust Fund and allow States and Local government to supervise the federal water development construction, maintenance and major repair funds to finance the aquatic ecosystem restoration programs. Apart from this, the Congress should request USDA to investigate where and how the Agricultural wetland Reserve Program would help to save the USDA farm expenditure (Harvey  Green 2004). This follows the initiative of resettling farmers, who worked in wetlands in view of restoring the wetland. When restoring the aquatic life, programs should take into consideration the following
the use of the landscape perspective the use of adjusting planning and management the evaluating and ranking restoration alternatives based on an assessment of opportunity cost rather than on traditional benefit cost analysis.

To sum up, the aquatic restoration should involve, apart from the committees, citizen awareness and initiative. Failure to which could lead to increased environmental costs later, extinction of species or ecosystem types and in permanent ecological damage.