Conventional Approaches to Improving the Quality of Water
As noted above, the chemical pollution of water is largely viewed as an inevitable consequence of human progress. Advances in biochemistry are helping to define specific details of the metabolic disruptions caused by both excessive quantities of natural chemicals and even relatively small amounts of synthetic chemicals. Moreover, increasing numbers of new chemicals are continually being manufactured to achieve industrial goals. Microbes are also emerging that are capable of metabolically processing newly developed synthetic chemicals. Disrupted ecosystems may also support the excessive proliferation of certain life forms, referred to as invasive species, which would ordinarily have faced elimination within a functionally intact foreign ecosystem.
Combatting the extremes of chemical pollution has typically relied upon the physical removal of the contaminants or applying other chemicals to oppose the deleterious biochemical actions of the contaminants [9]. Chemicals are also commonly used in attempts to selectively kill pathogenic microbes and invasive animal species. Most of these efforts are expensive, directed at controlling individual contaminants, only marginally successful, and commonly lead to inadvertent secondary damage. Specific technologies are aggressively pursued upon the awarding of patents and/or when favorable political influence becomes available.
Many non-profit organizations also have the goal of reducing water pollution. Billions of dollars are raised annually through philanthropy and Governmental grants. At best, the efforts of these organizations are limited in scope and merely reduce the rate of further water pollution.