The following are letters to the editor from Mattawan Middle School students.
Clint Lahaie, Mattawan
Do you like black, shiny water? That stuff that you say is iron but is not iron. It's oil. Water pollution is a big problem in Michigan because of the Kalamazoo River oil spill.
A oil spill is when something carrying oil and the oil spills out. After that, the oil goes with the current of the river and harms animals like birds, turtles and fish. It can also go into water supplies and be drunk by humans. Oil is not healthy for humans. Oil is made to go into cars, boats, robots and other machines.
What we can do to help resolve this problem is we can send people there with oil suckers and suck up all the oil. In 2010, the Kalamazoo river oil spill contaminated a lot of animals and got into people's water supply.
Mariam Farran, Mattawan
Deforestation is the permanent destruction of forests to make land available for other uses. Deforestation around the world, in areas such as the Amazon, is bad for our state and the world, because it is causing climate change, such as the reduction of precipitation causing droughts.
People in Michigan are making this problem worse by the usage of about 785,000 tons of paper, and about half of that goes to waste, and most of the waste is not recycled. The waste of the paper is contributing to the greenhouse effect caused by increased levels of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants. Also the deforestation is leading to reduction of rainfall. The droughts would ruin or crops and land in general.
Some things that we can do solve this problem is to reduce the usage of paper, The less paper we use the fewer trees are cut down. Also some people are already trying to ban the clear cutting of forests.
Now imagine no more rain, crops dead, land dead, the air humid and hot, paper waste overrunning the world. No one would want to live in a world like that.
Justin Streeter, Paw Paw
Michigan is defined by the Great Lakes. The bounty of water and its effect on the climate of the region have long shaped the rich ecosystems throughout the state. Michigan has beautiful beaches for swimming, bountiful northern forests for bird watching, and rich soils for agriculture. These ecosystems continue to play a significant role in Michigan’s vibrant economy.” But with global warming, all of these beautiful beaches and bountiful forests could just go away.
Global Warming is the gradual increase in the overall temperature of earth’s atmosphere. Global Warming is generally attributed to the greenhouse effect caused by the increase of carbon dioxide, chlorofluorocarbons, and other pollutants. This is a huge issue for the people on Earth and the earth itself.
People are trying their best to promote clean forms of energy such as wind or solar power. Using solar and wind power produces no emissions unlike our old friend, fossil fuels. Plus, people have been driving electric, emission-free cars. And once electric cars take off more, more will drive them, cutting emissions down drastically.
I think that global warming is is terrible because it destroys homes for animals and plants and it affects earth’s climate for years and years. I think we can get energy in different ways, such as wind or solar power.
Andrew Shutters, Lawton
Have you ever been to a crystal clear lake? If you have, then you know it is beautiful. But what about the other lakes that are polluted? Water pollution is bad because children play in polluted water and people drink that water.
When we let little kids play in that water, they swallow the water polluted with who knows what. That water could have human waste, drugs, garbage, even chemicals. All of that could be in that little bit of water you child swallowed. Could you imagine having waste and garbage in your person? You could also think of fish. That is their habitat and we are destroying it.
We keep building factories near bodies of water. The factories with the smokestacks are the worst pollutants. It doesn't just pollute the water, it pollutes the air as well. If we stop building those factories then we could save water, the air, the trees we use to build the factories.
Grady Doonan, Kalamazoo
People who live in Kalamazoo will sometimes get benzene exposure. This disease, can actually come from the Kalamazoo River, because of an oil spill. The oil spill in the Kalamazoo River must be cleaned up because it is causing health problems, polluting the air and polluting our drinking water.
In July 2010, there had been an oil spill that had polluted the Talmadge Creek, and more that 30 miles of the Kalamazoo River. The massive oil spill had an estimated 843,000 gallons of oil. This is causing more people to get benzene exposure. We should be more concerned about this because benzene exposure can cause cancer, effects to the nervous system, and even death.
We need to clean up the Kalamazoo river and stop this benzene exposure from growing too big.
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