To add to your chemical point, once the aquifer (the water under the ground) is contaminated with chemicals, it is nearly impossible to clean up and must be treated as it is pumped out for use. It isn’t like a lake that can heal from damages over time with plants and animals accumulating the toxins. They are stuck there forever until they are either pumped out of a well or flow through the aquifer until it reachs a spring where the water reachs the surfaces, which could be 100s of kms away and take 100s of years for the water to get there.
If you’ve ever seen an old gas station fenced off with random posts/metal poles around the site, it is probably an array of monitoring wells to track the concentration and movement of contaminated water.
To add to your chemical point, once the aquifer (the water under the ground) is contaminated with chemicals, it is nearly impossible to clean up and must be treated as it is pumped out for use. It isn’t like a lake that can heal from damages over time with plants and animals accumulating the toxins. They are stuck there forever until they are either pumped out of a well or flow through the aquifer until it reachs a spring where the water reachs the surfaces, which could be 100s of kms away and take 100s of years for the water to get there.
If you’ve ever seen an old gas station fenced off with random posts/metal poles around the site, it is probably an array of monitoring wells to track the concentration and movement of contaminated water.