Acid Rain: Pay A Little Now or A Lot Later
Acid rain is a serious problem with disastrous effects. Each day this serious problem
increases, many people believe that this issue is too small to deal with right now this
issue should be met head on and solved before it is too late. In the following paragraphs
I will be discussing the impact has on the wildlife and how our atmosphere is being
destroyed by acid rain.
CAUSES
Acid rain is a cancer eating into the face of Eastern Canada and the North Eastern United
States. In Canada, the main sulphuric acid sources are non-ferrous smelters and power
generation. On both sides of the border, cars and trucks are the main sources for nitric
acid(about 40% of the total), while power generating plants and industrial commercial and
residential fuel combustion together contribute most of the rest. In the air, the sulphur
dioxide and nitrogen oxides can be transformed into sulphuric acid and nitric acid, and
air current can send them thousands of kilometres from the source.When the acids fall to
the earth in any form it will have large impact on the growth or the preservation of
certain wildlife.
NO DEFENCE
Areas in Ontario mainly southern regions that are near the Great Lakes, such substances
as limestone or other known antacids can neutralize acids entering the body of water
thereby protecting it. However, large areas of Ontario that are near the Pre-Cambrian
Shield, with quartzite or granite based geology and little top soil, there is not enough
buffering capacity to neutralize even small amounts of acid falling on the soil and the
lakes. Therefore over time, the basic environment shifts from an alkaline to a acidic
one. This is why many lakes in the Muskoka,
Haliburton, Algonquin, Parry Sound and Manitoulin districts could lose their fisheries if
sulphur emissions are not reduced substantially.
ACID
The average mean of pH rainfall in Ontario's Muskoka-Haliburton lake country ranges
between 3.95 and 4.38 about 40 times more acidic than normal rainfall, while storms in
Pennsilvania have rainfall pH at 2.8 it almost has the same rating for vinegar.
Already 140 Ontario lakes are completely dead or dying. An additional 48 000 are
sensitive and vulnerable to acid rain due
to the surrounding concentrated acidic soils.
ACID RAIN CONSISTS OF....?
Canada does not have as many people, power plants or automobiles as the United States,
and yet acid rain there has become so severe that Canadian government officials called it
the most pressing environmental issue facing the nation. But it is important to bear in
mind that acid rain is only one segment, of the widespread pollution of the atmosphere
facing the world. Each year the global atmosphere is on the receiving end of 20 billion
tons of carbon dioxide, 130 million tons of suffer dioxide, 97 million tons of
hydrocarbons, 53 million tons of nitrogen oxides, more than three million tons of
arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel, zinc and other toxic metals, and a host of
synthetic organic compounds ranging from polychlorinated biphenyls(PCBs) to toxaphene and
other pesticides, a number of which may be capable of causing cancer, birth defects, or
genetic imbalances.
COST OF ACID RAIN
Interactions of pollutants can cause problems. In addition to contributing to acid rain,
nitrogen oxides can react with hydrocarbons to produce ozone, a major air pollutant
responsible in the United States for annual losses of $2 billion to 4.5 billion worth of
wheat, corn, soyabeans, and peanuts. A wide range of interactions can occur many unknown
with toxic metals.
In Canada, Ontario alone has lost the fish in an estimated 4000 lakes and provincial
authorities calculate that Ontario stands to lose the fish in 48 500 more lakes within
the next twenty years if acid rain continues at the present rate.Ontario is not alone, on
Nova Scotia's Eastern most shores, almost every river flowing to the Atlantic Ocean is
poisoned with acid. Further threatening a $2 million a year fishing industry.
THE DYING
Acid rain is killing more than lakes. It can scar the leaves of hardwood forest, wither
ferns and lichens, accelerate the death of coniferous needles, sterilize seeds, and
weaken the forests to a state that is vulnerable to disease infestation and decay. In the
soil the acid neutralizes chemicals vital for growth, strips others from the soil and
carries them to the lakes and literally retards the respiration of the soil. The rate of
forest growth in the White Mountains of New Hampshire has declined 18% between 1956 and
1965, time of increasingly intense acidic rainfall.
Acid rain no longer falls exclusively on the lakes, forest, and thin soils of the
Northeast it now covers half the continent.
EFFECTS
There is evidence that the rain is destroying the productivity of the once rich soils
themselves, like an overdose of chemical fertilizer or a gigantic drenching of vinegar.
The damage of such overdosing may not be repairable or reversible. On some croplands,
tomatoes grow to only half their full weight, and the leaves of radishes wither.
Naturally it rains on cities too, eating away stone monuments and concrete structures,
and corroding the pipes which channel the water away to the lakes and the cycle is
repeated. Paints and automobile paints have its life reduce due to the pollution in the
atmosphere speeding up the corrosion process. In some communities the drinking water is
laced with toxic metals freed from metal pipes by the acidity. As if urban skies were not
already grey enough, typical visibility has declined from 10 to 4 miles, along the
Eastern seaboard, as acid rain turns into smogs. Also, now there are indicators that the
components of acid rain are a health risk, linked to human respiratory disease.
PREVENTION
However, the acidification of water supplies could result in increased concentrations of
metals in plumbing such as lead, copper and zinc which could result in adverse health
effects. After any period of non-use, water taps at summer cottages or ski chalets they
should run the taps for at least 60 seconds to flush any excess debris.
STATISTICS
Although there is very little data, the evidence indicates that in the last twenty to
thirty years the acidity of rain has increased in many parts of the United States.
Presently, the United States annually discharges more than 26 million tons of suffer
dioxide into the atmosphere. Just three states, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois are
responsible for nearly a quarter of this total. Overall, two-thirds of the suffer dioxide
into the atmosphere over the United States comes from coal-fired and oil fired plants.
Industrial boilers, smelters, and refineries contribute 26%; commercial institutions and
residences 5%; and transportation 3%. The outlook for future emissions of suffer dioxide
is not a bright one. Between now and the year 2000, United States utilities are expected
to double the amount of coal they burn. The United States currently pumps some 23 million
tons of nitrogen oxides into the atmosphere in the course of the year.
Transportation sources account for 40%; power plants, 30%; industrial sources, 25%; and
commercial institutions and residues, 5%. What makes these figures particularly
distributing is that nitrogen oxide emissions have tripled in the last thirty years.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Acid rain is very real and a very threatening problem. Action by one government is not
enough. In order for things to be done we need to find a way to work together on this for
at least a reduction in the contaminates contributing to acid rain. Although there are
right steps in the right directions but the government should be cracking down on
factories not using the best filtering systems when incinerating or if the factory is
giving off any other dangerous fumes. I would like to express this question to you, the
public:WOULD YOU RATHER PAY A LITTLE NOW OR A LOT LATER?
|