Acid Rain Program Brings Improvements

Environmental News Service ^ | 02/03/2003

[cogitator]

Acid Rain Program Brings Improvements

WASHINGTON, DC, February 3, 2003 (ENS) - The federal Clean Air Act of 1990 appears to be successful in reducing two major types of air pollutants that contribute to acid rain.

Acid rain includes both wet deposition through rain, snow and fog, and dry deposition through gases and particles of sulfate.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released a report documenting the success of the agency's Acid Rain Program in reducing acid rain in sensitive ecosystems of the United States. The Acid Rain Program is a market based cap and trade program that allows companies to earn credits for reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2) below permitted levels, then trade or sell those credits to companies that have not met their emissions caps.

The release last week was timed to provide support for a similar program that the Bush administration has proposed to address power plant emissions of SO2, nitrogen oxides (NOx) and mercury.

"This study confirms that market based approaches to pollution control work," said EPA Administrator Christie Whitman. "This Acid Rain Program model is the basis for President Bush's Clear Skies plan, which is expected to result in significantly less air pollution and major environmental results."

The most recent data, available in the report, confirm a 40 percent decrease in wet sulfate deposition across broad areas of the Northeastern and Upper Midwestern U.S. Regional declines in surface water sulfate can be linked to declines in emissions and deposition of sulfur that have occurred since the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, Whitman said.

The EPA's Acid Rain Program has achieved more emission reductions at a faster pace and lower cost than first expected. The 1990 law set a goal of reducing annual SO2 emissions by about 50 percent below 1980 levels in 2010 to combat acid rain. In 2001, emissions of SO2 under the Acid Rain emissions trading program measured 10.6 million tons, already more than six a half million tons below 1980 levels.

The reductions to date represent 80 percent of the progress needed to reach the program's emission reductions goal.

The EPA's Office of Research and Development, along with other collaborators, released the report, "Response of Surface Water Chemistry to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990." The EPA and its collaborators have been working since 1990 to determine whether control measures have reduced levels of acidity in lakes and streams in five geographic areas of the Upper Midwest and Northeastern United States - those areas most affected by acid rain.

In three of those areas, one-quarter to one-third of lakes and streams once affected by acid rain are no longer acidic, although they are still sensitive to future changes in deposition. In other areas, signs of recovery are not yet evident, suggesting that further reductions would aid in ecosystem recovery.

Among the report's highlights:

- Eight percent of lakes in the Adirondacks are still acidic, down from 13 percent in the early 1990s.

- Fewer than one percent of lakes in the Upper Midwest are now acidic, down from three percent in the early 1980s.

- Nine percent of the stream length in the Northern Appalachian Plateau region is acidic, down from 12 percent in the early 1990s.

The researchers cautioned that the improvements do not mean that northeastern waterways are out of danger. For example, although sulfuric acid levels have dropped in many surface waters, nitric acid levels have not decreased.

Data from about 100 lakes in Maine and another 286 in New England indicates that there has been little net change in the acid status of waters in that region.

"The report emphasizes that there are significant uncertainties in our understanding of processes related to recovery of acidic lakes, and that research needs to continue for us to understand the effectiveness of the Clean Air Act and any future amendments," said Steve Kahl, director of the Senator George J. Mitchell Center for Environmental and Watershed Research at the University of Maine. Kahl led the EPA research effort in New England and helped to lead the team that wrote the report.

"We've seen reductions in sulfate that are linked to Clean Air Act regulations," Kahl noted. "Sulfuric acid does not control the acidity of surface waters as it used to."

Levels of dissolved aluminum in lakes and streams have dropped in some regions and remain unchanged in others, the report found. Dissolved aluminum concentrations are related to acidity. The metal can impair reproduction in fish and amphibians, although its actual biological consequences are unclear.

Levels of calcium, magnesium and other acid buffering elements have dropped in lakes and streams for reasons that are unclear, and this change has offset some of the decrease in acidity that would have otherwise occurred. Dissolved organic compounds in water increased in every region and contributed natural acidity to surface waters.

The full EPA report is posted on UMaine's Senator George Mitchell Center's web page at: http://www.umaine.edu/WaterResearch/ under "Publications."

[cogitator]

The problem may not be entirely pHixed, but it's improving.

[ElectricStrawberry]

Acid rain includes both wet deposition through rain, snow and fog, and dry deposition through gases and particles of sulfate.

Dry acid rain? Can't they create a new category called acid humidity?

They made a big stink about acid rain killing the ponds on Cape Cod back in the mid-eighties and the talk disappeared by 1990. The fish were still there. The ponds were NOT overrun with algae or larger water plants.

"The report emphasizes that there are significant uncertainties in our understanding of processes related to recovery of acidic lakes, and that research needs to continue for us to understand the effectiveness of the Clean Air Act and any future amendments,"

Significant uncertainties = "We have no clue what it'll take, but give us wads of cash and that'll help."

...and the fishin' goes on.

[Grampa Dave]

More enviralist Bravo Sierra that deserves the following:

[cogitator]

Oh, I don't think that's fair; EPA is noting the success of their own program and how the Clear Skies initiative will continue that success.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[farmfriend]

ping

[E.G.C.]

BTTT!!!!!

[Grampa Dave]

How much acid rain and dirty air was created last year due to the out of control forest fires due to the agendas of the enviral whackos?

[cogitator]

Probably not much acid rain, which results from SO2 in coal-fired power plant emissions and NOx in automobile exhaust. Dirty air; there was a lot of soot in some places.

[pachanga]

Just to throw in a few comments, the ARP works, as the article mentions, because it is market-based. I used to work for a large utility keeping track of our emissions and reporting them to EPA and can say that the regulators were very easy to work with because the market replaced their role as traditional 'enforcers' of the law--the more efficient your plants were and less emissions you put out, the more money you received from the allowance auctions. Pretty much everybody wins (except maybe the company with the 1955 vintage coal burner that hasn't upgraded since that time). Perhaps one of the only practical EPA programs.

That said, the mythology of acidic northern lakes goes on--they have always been acidic due to the geology of the region. Just the degree could be subject to argument. But a lot of 'researchers' still capitalize on this lack of historical knowledge to keep their careers in academia going, trying to figure out how best to neutralize naturally acidic waters.

[B4Ranch]

The EPA's Acid Rain Program has achieved more emission reductions at a faster pace and lower cost than first expected. The 1990 law set a goal of reducing annual SO2 emissions by about 50 percent below 1980 levels in 2010 to combat acid rain. In 2001, emissions of SO2 under the Acid Rain emissions trading program measured 10.6 million tons, already more than six a half million tons below 1980 levels.

As I read the article, I was waiting for the EPA/ARP to congratulate our Senate on ridding the US of A of our coal burning manufacturing plants. It never came?

Does anyone esle believe that shutting down the coal burning plants is probably the number one contributer to the cleaner air.