Answer

Summary of the Video

      The video highlights problems that face the water’s journey in Florida. People of Florida have neglected the waters and mostly use the running water system to dump their garbage and non-degradable trash. The thing that they do not understand is that as much as the garbage is out of their lives it has not fully gone because it is assimilated back into the water that they consume and drink. Some of the farm owners of the area have found partnerships with people who would benefit from the waste of their farm and they work together.

      The people of Florida have yet to discover that the waste that they throw away eventually comes back to them in terms of poison in their drinking water. The journey of the water takes a long time underground but eventually, the water gets back to the aquifers. The water journey is blocked by garbage that the people throw away and in turn, as the water makes its way it is met with obstacles. The caves that the water runs through often collapse because of the blockage that in most of the time is caused by trash.

Different ways of how Floridians have impacted the springs

       One of the ways in which the people of Florida have impacted on the springs is that they throw the trash into the water system only for the trash to find its way into the springs in which they find their drinking water in their households. The people have no proper channels of disposing off their garbage and one way or the other the garbage finds its way through the aquifers. The underground divers found so much garbage in the caves below the town and most of it was coming from people’s households.

       The underground divers also discovered debris within the water network in the caves. The debris was coming from the surface and causing the caves to collapse due to their heavyweight. Also, the sinkholes in the streams passage were used as dumping ground for garbage. As the garbage decomposes on the water it sheds particles and they end up forming debris which becomes part of the water system. The sinkholes that were formed as a result of the water passing below the ground and the collapsed caves, the people threw their garbage into them forming dumping ground and at the same time polluting the water.

        Other than that, the underground divers discovered some tragic things inside the caves. There is an oil drum in the cave that seems to have been dumped in one of the sinkholes and found its way to the caves; other things like pesticides were also present in the water. The sad thing is that as the water moves underground Florida, it eventually finds its way to the springs where the people took toward to find their drinking water. The poison that they dump in the sinkhole finds its way to the taps where they drink. 

Solutions

        One of the solutions to protecting the springs is what most of the farmers are doing now. They attempt to reduce the nitrate they use in the farm. This effort will work magic to the people of Florida because when the farmers use pesticides and insecticides which have nitrates in their agricultural practices, the nitrates will enter the soil and be met with groundwater or even water from rain and the nitrates will dissolve in the water underground. The cycle of the underground water is that it will take some time to reach the surface, but when it does the water will be filled with nitrates which will be harmful to humans.

        One of the major challenges the people have in the area is proper disposal methods that is why the sinkholes are used as dumping sites. The livestock farmers in the area are working in coordination with the other farmers who might be in need of the waste products they have at the farm. Once these farmers are able to have proper disposal of their waste products they will be able to manage the waste and in turn recycle the products. Waste management and recycling of waste products are one of the methods that will save the springs.

          In the event that the farmers have liquid waste, there is a special program that the farmers have developed to work for the benefit of the farmer and at the same time save and conserve the environment at large. One of the efforts that the program has is that the liquid waste can be collected and used as manure for the crops in the field. The manure is organic and therefore not harmful to the environment even when it finds its way into the drinking water.

Things learned from the video  

          One of the things that came as a complete shock is the cycle of water below the surface. The water that comes from the rain enters the earth surface and in the process goes below the ground. When the process is consistent, the water makes a way through the rock-hard surface and the many paths that have been created forms caves. It is very surprising that below the surface there are so many caves that have been created by the running of the water below the surface. The caves become a way for the water to travel and form a way for the water above the surface.

          The other shocking thing is the way the people have neglected the springs. The people of Florida have shown less concern for the springs as they use the sinkholes that have been created by erosion of running underground water as places for them to dump garbage. As the divers were below the surface they found very harmful items like an oil drum that was dumped in the sinkhole and was run by the water into the caves, plastic and tons of trash. The people of Florida are the ones that ruin the spring.

          The most shocking of all the unfolding events is the movement cycle of the water from the surface then underground and then back to the surface, the water carries all the particles it finds in its way. The trash that people throw in the sinkhole, the water passes through all of them and eventually reaches the surface where the same people who poison the water will use for drinking thereby poisoning themselves.  The water once it is below the surface will pick up all the components of the trash it finds in its way and thus the water becomes poisonous and by the time the water is on the surface, the people are ready to drink it from the spring.