Air Pollution - Environmental Science - page 355

Potential problem areas because of sensitive soils
Potential problem areas because of air pollution:
emissions leading to acid deposition
Current problem areas (including lakes and rivers)

Figure 15-8 Natural capital degradation: regions where acid deposition is now a problem and regions with
the potential to develop this problem. Such regions have large inputs of air pollution (mostly from power plants,
industrial plants, and ore smelters) or are sensitive areas with soils and bedrock that cannot neutralize (buffer)
inputs of acidic compounds. (Data from World Resources Institute and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency)

such as red spruce and balsam fir that keep their leaves
year-round) are bathed almost continuously in very
acidic fog and clouds.
Most of the world's forests and lakes are not being de-
stroyed or seriously harmed by acid deposition. Rather,
this regional problem is harming forests and lakes that
lie downwind from coal-burning facilities and from
large car-dominated cities without adequate pollution
controls.

systems it affects often are quite distant from those
that cause the problem. Also, countries with large sup-
plies of coal (such as China, India, Russia, and the
United States) have a strong incentive to use it as a ma-
jor energy resource. Owners of coal-burning power
plants say the costs of adding pollution control equip-
ment, using low-sulfur coal, or removing sulfur from
coal are too high and would increase the cost of elec-
tricity for consumers.
Environmental scientists respond that affordable
and much cleaner ways are available to produce elec-
tricity—including wind turbines and burning natural
gas in turbines. They also point out that the largely
hidden health and environmental costs of burning coal
amount to roughly twice its market cost. Including
these costs would spur prevention of acid deposition.
Large amounts of limestone or lime can be used to
neutralize acidified lakes or surrounding soil—the
only cleanup approach now being used. Liming cre-
ates several problems, however. But this expensive
and temporary remedy usually must be repeated an-
nually. Also, it can kill some types of plankton and
aquatic plants and can harm wetland plants that need
acidic water. Finally, it is difficult to know how much
lime to put where (in the water or at selected places on
the ground).

Examine how acid deposition can harm a pine forest and
what it means to surrounding land and waters at Environ-
mental ScienceNow.

Solutions: Reducing Acid Deposition
Acid deposition can be prevented and cleaned up,
but this is politically difficult.
Figure 15-11 (p. 357) summarizes ways to reduce acid
deposition. According to most scientists studying the
problem, the best solutions are prevention approaches
that reduce or eliminate emissions of sulfur dioxide,
nitrogen oxides, and particulates.
Currently, controlling acid deposition is a political
hot potato. One problem is that the people and eco-