Acid Rain

At long last, Congress has resolved most issues in a long-stalled debate: what to do about acid rain. President Bush's 1989 jump-start surprised many who opposed Clean Air Act revisions, but then the legislative process bogged down.The Midwest, whose utilities and plants pump out most of the sulphur and toxic pollutants floating East, wanted to protect an economy hit hard by oil shocks, foreign competition and the Sunbelt's lure. The East, whose miners dig much of the coal used in Midwest power plants, wanted to protect jobs.

As a scientist, it's the questions that keep me up at night. When chemical nitrogen fertilizer is applied to crops, what happens to the nitrogen that isn't absorbed? When nitrogen is emitted to the atmosphere from fossil fuel combustion, where does it go, and what does it do? Tackling these questions has been a major focus of my research, and that of a dedicated cadre of scientists around the globe, since the 1980s. Several years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Science Advisory Board recognized this major environmental challenge and gathered some of the nation's top scientists to examine the issue.

Finally, President Bush has quietly junked a long-standing Reagan administration policy of stonewalling Canadian complaints on acid rain. It was nearly overlooked in the rush of news about the aftermath of the Persian Gulf war, but on March 13 Mr. Bush and Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney signed a new agreement to fight cross-border pollution.Canada has complained repeatedly that acid rain, most of it from the United States, was jeopardizing aquatic life in as many as 14,000 lakes. Environmentalists in New York state and New England, for their part, have long argued that Canadian industry, while smaller in scope than in the U.S., causes serious acid-rain problems there.

Wind power cuts very little carbon While invoking concerns about global warming to trump all arguments against constructing industrial wind energy plants in largely undeveloped areas, Mike Tidwell neglects to show that wind farms actually help fight climate change ("Need for wind farms in Maryland trumps aesthetics argument," Opinion Commentary, Dec. 26). Instead, he goes on to invoke logging and acid rain as other threats to the forest, as if those abuses justify the additional threat from large-scale wind energy development.

ALBANY, N.Y. - For years, the invisible menace of acid rain has been slowly destroying life in the once-pristine lakes of the Adirondack Park. Researchers say 500 of the roughly 2,800 lakes scattered throughout the New York's 6-million-acre park show few signs of animal or plant life. And unless conditions change - mainly by diminishing air pollution generated by power plants hundreds of miles south and west of the mountains - half of the Adirondack lakes could be dead 40 years from now. "The acid rain problem is worse in the Adirondacks than any other place in the country," said Charles Driscoll, a professor of environmental engineering at Syracuse University, who has studied acid rain throughout the Northeast since the 1970s.

Companies developing technologies to control acid rain may be sitting on a sleeping giant of a market. Clean Air Act amendments finised at the end of 1990 and expectations that ZTC the stock market will bottom out in the next quarter have rekindled investor interest in these companies.But since most new technologies are being developed by large, diversified companies, investment analysts and brokers have paid little attention because few opportunities exist for a "pure play" in companies devoted totally or mostly to controlling acid rain.

BIG MOOSE LAKE, N.Y. - For fifty years, Big Moose Lake has been the poster child for the slow poisoning of Adirondack waters by acid rain. Big Moose isn't the most acidic lake in New York's vast Adirondack Park. But it's size - 1,266 acres of tea-colored water - has earned it the reputation as the largest lake to die from acid rain. Researchers say 500 of the roughly 2,800 lakes scattered throughout the New York's 6-million-acre park show few signs of animal or plant life. And unless conditions change - mainly by diminishing air pollution generated by power plants hundreds of miles south and west of the mountains - half of the Adirondack lakes could be dead 40 years from now. "Big Moose is a tragedy," said Karen Roy, the project coordinator for the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corporation, an affiliate of the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC)

WASHINGTON -- With world attention focused on global warming, some members of Congress are quietly taking up another environmental fight that most people thought was finished years ago: acid rain.Caused when pollution mixes with water in the air and falls back to earth, acid rain has been blamed for the deaths of entire mountainsides of trees and hundreds of lakes, primarily in the Northeast.By 1990 the problem had became so widespread that Congress enacted sweeping amendments to the 1970 Clean Air Act that required dramatic cuts in sulfur dioxide, the pollutant believed at the time to be the main component of acid rain.

TROY, N.Y. - A study of 30 Adirondack lakes by scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has revealed that some lakes within the 6,000,000-acre park are responding to a decade of cuts in the air pollution that causes acid rain. Researchers found that pH - the concentration of acid in water - improved from 1994 to 2000 in 18 of 30 lakes that had been most heavily affected by acid rain. The reduction in acid levels caused increases in the diversity of microscopic plants and other wildlife.

WASHINGTON -- A landmark air-pollution law enacted a decade ago to reduce acid rain has failed to slow the acidification of lakes and streams in the Adirondacks, many of which are rapidly losing the ability to sustain life, according to a new federal report. The study by the General Accounting Office, a nonpartisan research agency for Congress, raises sharp questions about the effectiveness of the Clean Air Act amendments of 1990, which set tough restrictions on smokestack emissions of sulfur and nitrogen, the two components of acid rain.

Clear Skies plan adds to progress cleaning the air The Sun's editorial "Audit the messenger?" (March 1) repeated the erroneous argument that doing nothing would be better than enacting President Bush's proposal to reduce pollution by unprecedented levels. However, if the Clear Skies Act proposed by the president is passed, it will drastically improve the nation's air quality by requiring U.S. power plants to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury by an average of 70 percent.

The owner of Maryland's largest power plant was talking to federal regulators about installing pollution-control equipment in 2002, when the Bush administration began weakening cleanup requirements for old coal-burning utilities. So the plant's owner, a subsidiary of Mirant Corp., walked away from the table, leaving the Chalk Point power station in Prince George's County belching pollutants that cause smog, acid rain and asthma attacks. "Mirant was talking about cleaning up their plants.

WASHINGTON - A 10-year government study of air quality at major national parks found foliage-killing ozone levels rising at 20 of the 32 parks surveyed, including Yellowstone, Shenandoah, the Great Smoky Mountains and the Everglades. About half of 29 parks surveyed for acid rain were found to have continuing or worsening problems from nitrate deposits. Sulfate concentrations associated with acid rain were on the rise in five parks, with Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore reporting a slight decrease.

RAQUETTE LAKE, N.Y. - Acid-rain-caused compounds are decreasing in Adirondack lakes, lending further evidence that the region's waters are improving from decades of acid rainfall, according to new research by the state and two universities. The study, which was recently submitted to the journal Environmental Science & Toxicology, found that in 44 of 48 lakes studied, sulfates - the building blocks of sulfuric acid - had declined since 1992. And for the first time since 1982, scientists detected a reduction in nitrates, which form nitric acid in water, in 15 of 48 lakes.

WILMINGTON, N.Y. - Whiteface Mountain is a tourist trap in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. It is the only mountaintop that can be reached by car. In the winter, it is a ski resort; in the summer, it is a mountain bike center. As such, Whiteface is the only peak of the 46 highest Adirondack Mountains not designated as pristine wilderness. But the threats facing Whiteface (elevation 4,670 feet) confront many of the more strictly protected peaks of the Adirondack Park, and some are coming from afar.

ST. PETERSBURG - During the "White Nights" summer solstice celebrations in this fairy tale city, with its stone-lined canals and pastel palaces, crowds stream along Nevsky Prospekt as twilight lingers after midnight. Home to the world famous Mariinsky Theater and the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg is one of the world's cultural capitals. The strolling sightseers, like those in Paris or London, might be tourists from around the world eagerly spending money in restaurants and concert halls.

WILMINGTON, N.Y. - Whiteface Mountain is a tourist trap in the High Peaks of the Adirondacks. It is the only mountaintop that can be reached by car. In the winter, it is a ski resort; in the summer, it is a mountain bike center. As such, Whiteface is the only peak of the 46 highest Adirondack Mountains not designated as pristine wilderness. But the threats facing Whiteface (elevation 4,670 feet) confront many of the more strictly protected peaks of the Adirondack Park, and some are coming from afar.

RAQUETTE LAKE, N.Y. - Acid-rain-caused compounds are decreasing in Adirondack lakes, lending further evidence that the region's waters are improving from decades of acid rainfall, according to new research by the state and two universities. The study, which was recently submitted to the journal Environmental Science & Toxicology, found that in 44 of 48 lakes studied, sulfates - the building blocks of sulfuric acid - had declined since 1992. And for the first time since 1982, scientists detected a reduction in nitrates, which form nitric acid in water, in 15 of 48 lakes.

IT would be easier to criticize President Bush's "Clear Skies" air pollution plan if it were, as critics claim, an environmental head-fake intended to freeze the greens in their hiking boots while corporations stoke the smokestacks. Former Vice President Al Gore said Monday that the proposal "actually allows more toxic mercury, nitrogen oxide and sulfur pollution than if we enforced the laws on the books today. It ought to be called the Dirty Skies initiative." That is simply not true.

TROY, N.Y. - A study of 30 Adirondack lakes by scientists at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has revealed that some lakes within the 6,000,000-acre park are responding to a decade of cuts in the air pollution that causes acid rain. Researchers found that pH - the concentration of acid in water - improved from 1994 to 2000 in 18 of 30 lakes that had been most heavily affected by acid rain. The reduction in acid levels caused increases in the diversity of microscopic plants and other wildlife.