Acid Rain

INTRODUCTION: Acid rain is a great problem in our world. It causes fish

and plants to die in our waters. As well it causes harm to our own race as well,

because we eat these fish, drink this water and eat these plants. It is a

problem that we must all face together and try to get rid of. However acid rain

on it's own is not the biggest problem. It cause many other problems such as

aluminum poisoning. Acid Rain is deadly.

WHAT IS ACID RAIN?

Acid rain is all the rain, snow, mist etc that falls from the sky onto our

planet that contains an unnatural acidic. It is not to be confused with

uncontaminated rain that falls, for that rain is naturally slightly acidic. It

is caused by today's industry. When products are manufactured many chemicals are

used to create it. However because of the difficulty and cost of properly

disposing of these products they are often emitted into the atmosphere with

little or no treatment.

The term was first considered to be important about 20 years ago when

scientists in Sweden and Norway first believed that acidic rain may be causing

great ecological damage to the planet. The problem was that by the time that the

scientist found the problem it was already very large. Detecting an acid lake is

often quite difficult. A lake does not become acid over night. It happens over a

period of many years, some times decades. The changes are usually to gradual for

them to be noticed early.

At the beginning of the 20th century most rivers/lakes like the river

Tovdal in Norway had not yet begun to die. However by 1926 local inspectors were

noticing that many of the lakes were beginning to show signs of death. Fish were

found dead along the banks of many rivers. As the winters ice began to melt off

more and more hundreds upon hundreds more dead fish (trout in particular) were

being found. It was at this time that scientist began to search for the reason.

As the scientists continued to work they found many piles of dead fish, up to

5000 in one pile, further up the river. Divers were sent in to examine the

bottom of the rivers. What they found were many more dead fish. Many live and

dead specimens were taken back to labs across Norway. When the live specimens

were examined they were found to have very little sodium in their blood. This is

typical a typical symptom of acid poisoning. The acid had entered the gills of

the fish and poisoned them so that they were unable to extract salt from the

water to maintain their bodies sodium levels.

Many scientist said that this acid poising was due to the fact that it was

just after the winter and that all the snow and ice was running down into the

streams and lakes. They believed that the snow had been exposed to many natural

phenomena that gave the snow it's high acid content. Other scientists were not

sure that this theory was correct because at the time that the snow was added to

the lakes and streams the Ph levels would change from around 5.2 to 4.6. They

believed that such a high jump could not be attributed to natural causes. They

believed that it was due to air pollution. They were right. Since the beginning

of the Industrial revolution in England pollution had been affecting all the

trees,soil and rivers in Europe and North America.