River+conservation

Hello today John H. and Mitch M. are going to tell you about some positive and negative things that humans have done to rivers. Most people only think about the negative things that humans are doing to the environment, but we are also doing good things! One good thing is that we are helping to save endangered species. One example is the Mississippi Alligator, or //Alligator mississipiensis.// About 30 years ago this species was on the brink of extinction but do to human efforts of protecting rivers and wetlands this species population is raising again! Now for the negative, there is a river called Snake River that runs through Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, humans have put in four dams in the lower part of the river. this has caused a serious decline in the river elevation. So once there is the big salmon run, the salmons have been having a hard time making it up the steam were several little cities depend on the fish for a good salmon meal. So if the people take the dams out it will not only help the fish but the people tat live in these areas too. 

There are problems that need to be solved on such problem is river pollution in Vietnam rivers. The government of Vietnam doesn't have a policy for no dumping and their rivers end up looking like the one below.



As you can see in this picture water pollution in Vietnam is something that has to be dealt with. One possible solution is to create water-purifying plants to clean the water. Another possibility is if citizens would come together and dispose of trash correctly. Many cause of pollution includes sewage and fertilizers. This forms a very big type of nutrients for algae and fungi to grow. This is not a good thing because it clogs up water pipes and sewages and other waterways. Also when pollution is in deeper waters it can block sun light or any other source of light to getting to the plants and animals that live down there. Which eventually ends up killing them.

Also to help to prevent polluton in rivers, like in the picture above we can recycle and thow away things instead of just throwing then out the window in your car when you go over a bridge and just throw stuff in there for no reason. Same with factories, the can make huge tubs to fill with the toxic waste instead of dumping into rivers or lake or any type of water source. Next in our first paragraph we talked about having to many dams on a river. Instead of havings dams that were just meant to hold up water and only let a little throw. We can replace those with dams that you can controle the water flow and with turbines in them to get energy from to. And like on the dam on the Thornapple river on Old 28th St. they have a little thing going upthe side of the dam that they can fill up with water so when theres a big fish run the fish can go up and down river.

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