A Canadian perspective on acid deposition

Excerpt

CANADA and the United States today face a mutual environmental problem at least as severe as any C confronting the two nations in the past. This is the issue of acid deposition, or acid rain as it is popularly called, which threatens the viability of the physical environment and the continued productivity of renewable resources in large parts of eastern Canada and the United States. Hundreds of lakes are being killed by sodium dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions from coal-fired thermal electrical plants and the nonferrous smelting industry; buildings are being eroded; there is growing evidence of adverse effects on soils and forest growth; and there may even be reason for concern about human health. It is essential that Canada and the United States develop an effective mechanism to deal with the long-range transport of transboundary airborne pollutants just as our two countries have done in the case of boundary waters. More than half the acid rain in eastern Canada comes from the United States, and up to a quarter of the acidity falling on the sensitive Adirondacks in the eastern United States is from Canada.

In the western region of Canada and the United States, the situation …