The Wind River Mountains in Wyoming were suffering the same degredation,
and the acid was primarily from coal-fired power plants in California and Utah.
That problem is also well on the mend.
>
>I worked with ecologists in New England in the 70s and 80s. Acid rain
>was real and extremely damaging, especially in granite-dominated New
>England, which lacked the buffering ability of soils based on
>sedimentary rock. Lakes were losing aquatic invertebrates that fish
>higher up the food chain depended on. Forest were dying from nutrients
>leached from their foliage by sulphuric acid. Even human artifacts,
>like metal bridges and cement structures, were undergoing accelerated
>aging.
>
>Coal-fired electricity was largely the problem. Richard Nixon's Clean
>Air Act required coal plants to either burn low-sulphur fuel, or to
>install "scrubbers" to remove the acid-rain-causing sulphur compounds.
>Sulphur was banned from most diesel fuel.
>
>The result? The lakes and soils of New England are recovering, thus
>your impression that "it doesn't matter any more."
>
Chris
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro
- Hunter S. Thompson
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