Environmental Protection Agency(EPA) has conducted a survey and according to them, nutrient pollution not only affects air, but also the water and its impact is found in all water bodies such as lakes, rivers and bays. Approximately 2.5 million acres of lakes, reservoirs, ponds and more than 800 square miles of bays in the United States have poor water quality.
The poor water quality is due to nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, nutrients can additionally soak into groundwater, which provides drinking water to millions of Americans. This also has a drastic impact on the agriculture affecting the livelihood of many farmers.
Systems such as sewer and septic systems do not operate properly or remove enough waste from water before it is discharged and thereby, creating large quantities of waste. Electric power generation, agriculture and transportation have increased the amount of nitrogen in air through the usage of fossil fuel.
U.S. Geological Survey has tabled a report in 2010, which revealed that nitrates were too high in 64% of monitoring wells in agricultural and urban areas. Infants who drink water containing high amount of nitrates can become seriously ill and can even die. Hence, it is important to reduce the nutrient pollution in water for safe drinking and agricultural activities.