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M/W 9:20
Substance Pollution
There are many different types of marine polution and each one has a negative effect on all organisms in comes into contact with. The four major forms of marine pollution toxic substances, organic substances, thermal, and ecological. In this essay I will focus on toxic and organic substance polution. Due to the extensive documentation and devastating nature of toxic substance pollution this essay will emphasize on it. Toxic and Organic pollution play to large of a role in the marine ecosystems of the world and unfortunately jeapordizes the lives of millions of marine organisms.
Toxic substance pollution is the most recognized form of pollution and is debatably the most destructive. A toxic substance is a chemical pollutant that is not a naturally occurring substance in aquatic ecosystems. The greatest contributors to toxic pollution are oil, pesticides and industrial compounds.Toxic pollution occurs when synthetic chemicals are discharged or natural chemicals accumulate to toxic levels in the environment, causing reductions in the overall number of organisms. Oil is perhaps the most widely recognized toxic pollutant. In the last 20 years oil spills have been the poster child for toxic pollution in marine ecosystems. The total repercussions of these incidents has not been fully realized, and unfortunately may manifest entirely in the years to come.
Oil spills are like a cancer to the marine habitats in which they occur. One of the most massive oil spills in history and the most horrific in American history is the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. It also may be referred to as the BP oil spill or even the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill. Somewhere between 90-180 million gallons of oil has been spilled into the Gulf of Mexico from the 2010 BP oil spill. No one can be certain exactly how much oil was spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. It all began with the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion on April 20, 2010, eleven people were...