Water covers almost three quarters of the earth’s surface, but only three percent of it is fresh water, and less than one third of that is usable; the rest is locked up as snow and ice at the polar regions. All living things depend on water to survive, yet water resources are limited and human activity can affect water quality and availability in subtle and far-reaching ways, as when mercury released into the atmosphere by burning coal is carried for hundreds of miles before falling with rain or snow and contaminating streams, rivers, lakes, the ocean, and ultimately seafood. In the Pine Barrens region, half of the rainwater falling on the two thousand four hundred square mile area seeps through porous soil into the Cohansey Aquifer, and surface runoff and seepage from this aquifer supply all of Southern New Jersey’s rivers flowing to the sea and Delaware Bay, while the Cohansey and the deeper Kirkwood aquifer also provide most of Southern New Jersey’s drinking water.