case study of acid rain in canada

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Lessons learned from the acid rain battles: Big environmental problems can be solved

John Gunn, Norman Yan and John P. Smol | March 18, 2021

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Lessons learned from the acid rain battles: big environmental problems can be solved.

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John Gunn, Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Stressed Aquatic Systems, Laurentian University

Norman Yan, Professor Emeritus, York University

John P. Smol, Distinguished University Professor and the Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, Queen’s University

March 13th, 2021 marked the 30th anniversary of the signing of the acid rain reduction treaty between Canada and the US. This occasion offers an opportunity to reflect on the mobilization of science and citizens resulting in a treaty that enabled the return of fish to many “dead lakes” on both sides of the border. The anniversary also provides a moment to reflect on the lessons learned with a view to informing current discussions about pipelines, climate change and other environmental issues.

Thirty years ago, the effects of acid rain in North America and elsewhere were vividly manifest in the depletion of fish life in lakes, the quality of air, and other environmental impacts of large industrial polluters. Through determined international collaboration and advocacy, scientists emphasized the need for effective control of emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxides at the source.

At the time, the barriers to meaningful progress in Canada were substantive as well as symbolic. The unequivocal science was matched with iconic imagery, such as the Inco (now Vale Ltd) “Super Stack”, a 381 m-tall smokestack. At the time, the Super Stack was the tallest in the world, designed to disperse emissions in Canada and indeed over the border into the US. In the 1980s, Sudbury’s smelters represented the world’s largest point source of SO2, producing more than 2 million tons per year - more than the amount Europe produces today.

Unsurprisingly, during the early days of the Canada/US negotiations, American representatives made it clear that Canada needed to clean up its own backyard before striking a bilateral arrangement.

In 1985, urged by scientists and advocates, the Government of Ontario imposed strict regulations on industries, including Inco, forcing emissions reductions of up to 50%.

Following five years of intense negotiations with the US Congress, important revisions were made to the Clean Air Act. While these revisions were met with fierce opposition, often involving misinformation campaigns from the coal and auto lobbies (but without the incendiary effects of today’s unfiltered social media), revisions to the Act benefited from good leadership in states and provinces that were downwind of emissions. Those with proximal experience with acid rain, such as tourist lodge operators, cottagers, and fish and tackle equipment manufacturers, were very effective in their advocacy.

In recent years, Canada’s SO2 emissions have declined by 69%, Sudbury’s by 98% and Vale’s Super Stack will soon be torn down. Meanwhile, the US implemented a cap-and-trade system that put a price on pollution, and they also achieved reduction targets ahead of schedule.

What seemed so daunting in the 1980s became a legislative reality in 1991, with demonstrative environmental benefits. What lessons from that era can be applied to climate change?

The first lesson is the need to energetically communicate science-based information. During the 1980s, hundreds of scientists around the world produced the requisite knowledge, and advocates, including Adèle Hurley and Michael Perley with the Canadian Coalition on Acid Rain (CCAR), shared findings with the public and with policy makers.

A second lesson is the desirability of going to the source of the problem. Whereas the Scandinavian countries had to begin an interim measure of lake liming, the North American focus was on controlling emissions of SO2 and nitrogen oxides at the source, an approach that could now be adapted in current discussions of CO2 capture technologies and strategies such as tree planting. To be sure, a strategy with multiple tactics is optimal, but eliminating pollution at its sources is the far better strategy.

A third lesson is that ambitious policy resulted in innovation in the private sector that resulted in acid rain reductions that would simply not have happened had government not intervened with fair and firm regulations designed to encourage competition. The best innovations involved energy and waste reductions, such as reduced use of fossil fuels, that were clearly advantageous for the companies. In Sudbury, nickel production was not affected and in recent decades approximately 15,000 new jobs were created in global-reach mining service industries.

The benefits for the public also proved greater than some expected, exceeding the benefits to local fisheries and forests. For example, sulphur aerosols and other pollutants associated with increased levels of asthma in children have been greatly reduced in North America.  Given the COVID concerns today, in terms of the respiratory health of millions exposed, what untold benefits may thus have arisen because of the agreements three decades ago?

These lessons from the acid rain battles of the 1980s illustrate reasons for cautious optimism as scientists and scholars continue our vital work today. Environmental science was a beneficiary and became far more international in scope, while the public began to better recognize the interconnectivity of environmental issues. Indeed, the word “environment” became part of our common speech in that era, and we began to recognize our shared responsibility for a common atmosphere.

These lessons from the past can continue to inform our collective efforts to address the threats of climate change.

This article is part of a collaboration between the Globe and Mail and the Royal Society of Canada mobilizing independent science and expertise on climate and environmental issues. This article initially appeared in the Globe and Mail on March 18, 2021.This article initially appeared in the Globe and Mail on March 18, 2021.

Research May 16, 2018

Acid Rain Is Totally So Last Century, Right? Not Exactly: A Canadian scientist explains how acid rain is still making its mark

By Cyndy Desjardins , Food Web Biologist

We can all agree that acid rain isn’t quite the media buzzword it once was.

However, while it may not feature as prominently in popular environmental discourse as it did back in its arguable heyday of the 1980s, the impacts of acid rain are still playing out in ecosystems across the globe.

Our food web biologist, Cyndy Desjardins, explains why acid rain is still a concern for freshwater systems, and what researchers in Canada are doing to discover and mitigate some of its lasting impacts.

What is Acid Rain?

Acid rain forms when nitrogen oxide (NOx) or sulfur dioxide (SO2) gasses are released into the atmosphere, primarily from the burning of fossil fuels.

These gases react with the oxygen and water in the clouds to form nitric and sulfuric acid, which can then be transported long distances within the clouds before falling on the landscape in raindrops, snow and other forms of precipitation, like fog or even dry particulates.

Cyndy Desjardins is one of the researchers helping to reintroduce Mysis back into Lake 223 after it was intentionally acidified back in the 1970s at IISD Experimental Lakes Area.

Why is Acid Rain a Problem?

Decades of acid precipitation falling on the landscape have acidified soils and decreased the pH of lakes across the globe. This can have a variety of impacts on the natural balance of ecosystems, and thus the health of our freshwater resources.

For example, it can hinder the ability of fish to detect predators. Atlantic salmon, an important fish stock on the east coast of North America, releases a chemical called an alarm cue when they are physically damaged by predators, which alerts other salmon in the area of the predator’s presence. The ability of salmon to detect this alarm cue is dramatically impaired when the pH of the river or stream they live in falls below a certain level.

While it may not feature as prominently in popular environmental discourse as it did back in its arguable heyday of the 1980s, the impacts of acid rain are still playing out in ecosystems across the globe.

Decreased pH in lakes also tends to lead to a decline in species diversity. Certain species of animals and vegetation are particularly sensitive to acidic conditions, so that these communities become dominated by a few acid-tolerant species at the expense of other acid-sensitive species—to the point where some animals become locally extinct.

This is exactly what scientists found during a landmark whole-ecosystem acid rain study conducted at the Experimental Lakes Area from 1976 to 1983, headed by then-director David Schindler, which shed light on how freshwater ecosystems are affected by acid rain.

What Has IISD-ELA Taught Us About Acid Rain?

In order to mimic the acidity of the rain that was falling on freshwater ecosystems at the time (in the mid-1970s), Schindler and his team introduced minute amounts of sulfuric acid into an experimental lake (Lake 223) in order to reduce the pH (i.e., acidify the lake) from about 6.8 to about 5.0 over the seven-year experiment.

Mysis are a main food item for growing fish; as fish grow, their diets shift from microscopic zooplankton to larger prey items (such as other fish), and Mysis fill the gap between these two food sources.

Among the many effects Schindler and his team found were reduced body condition (how “fat” a fish is) and low breeding success in white suckers and lake trout, and the near extinction of fathead minnows. Additionally, they found that crayfish populations crashed (likely related to a decline in the hardening of their exoskeletons after molting), and that  Mysis   diluviana  (or just Mysis)—a small but important freshwater shrimp—disappeared completely from the lake. This last finding was especially concerning given that the shrimp is a keystone species in the ecosystem and that this local extinction occurred at a much higher pH than had previously been thought to cause such effects.

Mysis are a main food item for growing fish; as fish grow, their diets shift from microscopic zooplankton to larger prey items (such as other fish), and Mysis fill the gap between these two food sources. With the disappearance of Mysis from Lake 223, energy transfer up the food chain, from algae to fish, slowed down, exacerbating declines in the fish stock of the lake.

How did Canada Deal with Acid Rain?

Acid rain caused by industrial activity was identified in the 1970s and 80s as a global problem for freshwater ecosystems. The effects that acid rain was having on freshwater ecosystems needed to be comprehensively researched in order to mitigate any potential threats to the health of our freshwater systems and populations. This was especially important for Canada, which has access to almost 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater resources.

The effects that acid rain was having on freshwater ecosystems needed to be comprehensively researched in order to mitigate any potential threats to the health of our freshwater systems and populations. This was especially important for Canada, which has access to almost 20 per cent of the world’s freshwater resources.

Based on evidence provided by Dr. Schindler’s study at the Experimental Lakes Area, as well as other studies conducted throughout the 1970s and 80s, legislation was put in place to curtail industrial emissions. These measures lead to significant decreases in emissions of NOx and SO2 from industrial point sources, such as factories, in the decades that followed. However, while legislation has indeed worked to make car exhausts cleaner, the number of vehicles on the road continues to rise with the increasing human population, so vehicle emissions remain a significant source of primarily NOx, but also SO2.

Scientists at Canada’s IISD Experimental Lakes Area are now reintroducing Mysis back into Lake 223 to see if trout populations recover.

What Else Does IISD-ELA Still Have to Teach Us about Acid Rain?

Lake 223 continues to be monitored decades after the acid rain experiment officially wrapped up. Interestingly, the water chemistry results suggest that while the chemical make-up of the lake has since returned to pre-experimental conditions, the biology of the lake (including the Mysis population) has not fully recovered. For example, there are less than half the lake trout in the lake compared to before the experiment, and their growth rates are much slower than were observed previously.

These findings likely reflect a broader trend of freshwater populations  still  feeling the effects of acid rain, despite legislation being enacted decades ago to reduce how much acid rain enters these systems.

During  IISD-ELA’s 50th field season , researchers from IISD-ELA and Lakehead University in Thunder Bay, Canada, will be repatriating Mysis to Lake 223 as part of an ecological restoration project. They want to see if recolonizing the lake with Mysis will restore the lake trout population. Additionally, they will be able to use the historical record of Lake 223, from the early acid rain experiment to the current Mysis reintroduction project and everything in between, as a case study to determine if Mysis recolonization could be a suitable restoration activity for other lakes that have been affected by acid rain.

Want to keep up with the latest news and updates from this new research? Be sure to follow  @IISD_ELA ,  @not_Klaatu  and yours truly  @CanuckLimnoGal  on Twitter

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The legacy from the 50 years of acid rain research, forming present and future research and monitoring of ecosystem impact

Bjørn olav rosseland.

Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management (MINA), Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Sørhellinga, Postboks 5003 NMBU, 1432 Ås, Norway

Acid rain and acidification research are indeed a multidisciplinary field. This field evolved from the first attempts to mitigate acid freshwater in the 1920s, then linking acid rain to the acidification in late 1950s, to the broad project-concepts on cause and effect from the late 1960s. Three papers from 1974, 1976 and 1988 demonstrate a broad approach and comprise scientific areas from analytical chemistry, biochemistry, limnology, ecology, physiology and genetics. Few, if any, environmental problems have led to a public awareness, political decisions and binding limitations as the story of acid rain. Acid precipitation and acidification problems still exist, but at a lower pressure, and liming has been reduced accordingly. However, the biological responses in the process of recovery are slow and delayed. The need for basic science, multidisciplinary studies, long time series of high-quality data, is a legacy from the acid rain era, and must form the platform for all future environmental projects.

Three papers in Ambio , Almer et al. ( 1974 ), Schofield ( 1976 ) and Henriksen et al. ( 1988 ), represent a very important “state of the art” at their time, focusing on the huge environmental effect caused by long range transported air pollutants, called “acid rain”. In Scandinavia, acid water had been recognised as a problem for especially Atlantic salmon ( Salmo salar ) and brown trout ( Salmo trutta ) since the 1920s (Dahl 1927 ), and hatcheries had locally installed limestone-filters to improve hatching success. Researchers had first speculated that reduced fish populations were caused by fish diseases or over-fishing, until Dannevig ( 1959 ) claimed the acid precipitation to be a major factor in causing the problems. However, the focus set by Professor Svante Odén in Sweden in 1968 was unique, leading to extensive investigations, documentation of status and onset of national projects in Sweden, and later in Norway (Grennfelt et al. 2020 ). The Almer et al. ( 1974 ) paper contained high-quality chemical data from Swedish lakes, sampled in a systematic way and linked to biological data from many of the same lakes, including primary producers (algae), invertebrates and fish. Observations of increased clarity of lakes formed the hypothesis of “oligotrophication”. Increased concentrations of several trace elements like Pb and Zn were also described. This paper was extremely important for the onset of similar projects and programs in many countries suffering from acid rain. It raised the international awareness to the top political level, leading finally to the international agreements on reductions in sulphur (S), nitrogen (N), ozone, heavy metals and Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs).

The study of a major fishkill of brown trout in the Norwegian River Tovdal during snowmelt in 1975, enabled a first understanding of the physiological responses to these episodic events of low pH and ionic dilution (Leivestad and Muniz 1976 ). This article was central in the review paper in Ambio by Schofield ( 1976 ), where he pointed to the common phenomenon of increasing numbers of barren lakes in Scandinavia, as in the eastern North America. He also concluded that the youngest life stages, egg to larvae, were the most sensitive, leading to reproduction failure and lacking year-classes. Species and strain differences in sensitivity to acid water were discussed, but because of the rapid acidification of the environment, natural selection of more tolerant strains or populations seemed not to have occurred. The reference list reflects a huge ongoing research into the field, as many papers were termed “in press” or “in preparation”.

Indeed, this was the start of an era where field data and laboratory studies were paralleled. Until 1977, the explanation for the negative biological effects of acid water was the low pH combined with low conductivity and calcium. A breakthrough came in 1977, when a report from Schofield ( 1977 ) suggested that aluminium (Al) could be THE key factor for the toxicity in acid water. Overnight, physiological groups in many countries included Al in their experiments. Another breaking news was the discovery of the importance of the chemical speciation of the Al, separating organic bound Al, from the non-organic, termed labile Al (LAl) or inorganic Al (Ali), and that the freshwater toxicity of Al was linked to LAl (Driscoll et al. 1980 ). New laboratory methods were developed to identify these species (e.g. Driscoll 1984 ).

Liming of acid waters started as a test program (1976–1981) in Sweden (Henrikson and Brodin 1995 ). Large lakes with a retention time of several years were their first target. When the Norwegian liming project started, 1978–1984, the cooperation with Sweden was strong, and has been like that ever since. The small sized lakes with heavy rainfall and retention times in months in Norway, called for other criteria and methods, including liming of large rivers (Baalsrud et al. 1985 ). The Swedish and Norwegian mitigation programs have been a great success and became the fundament for liming programs in both the USA and Canada.

In the early 1980s, there was a mass mortality of Atlantic salmon in River Vikedal (Norway) in their smolt-stage, prepared to migrate into seawater. This changed the focus from eggs and juveniles, to smolts being the most sensitive life history stage (Rosseland and Skogheim 1984 ). This meant that the water quality in rivers housing Atlantic salmon had to be protective for smolts from early spring until June, the period where smoltification and migration occurs. Eight years later, the phenomenon of “Mixing Zones” was described (Rosseland et al. 1992 ). A chemical inequilibrium zone formed downstream the mixture of an acid stream and a neutral or limed river resulted in Al polymerization and an initially extreme toxicity. Such zones could kill year-classes of smolts while migrating during spring floods. Liming all side tributaries to avoid such zones increased the cost of liming rivers.

The problems associated with acidification called for long-term monitoring, and national programs started in the beginning of the 1980s. Lakes and rivers, not influenced by liming, formed the basis for annual or periodic sampling of water and biota. ICP Waters, “the International Cooperative Program for Assessment and Monitoring of the Effects of Air Pollution on Rivers and Lakes”, started in 1984 and included water chemistry and biota.

The Norwegian 1000-lake study by Henriksen et al. ( 1988 ) was launched at a time when large databases from Norwegian lakes existed (i.e. Wright and Snekvik 1977 ), and where the scientific understanding of the relations between chemical elements and their biological effects was greatly improved, relative to the 1970s, and where politicians had agreed and started to reduce emissions. The study of Henriksen et al. ( 1988 ) included up-to-date chemistry data and a lake selection, similar to that in Almer et al. ( 1974 ) paper. Unlike lakes in Sweden and northeastern America, the Norwegian lakes had low TOC (Total Organic Carbon) and low conductivity waters with few species of fish, mainly brown trout and Arctic charr ( Salvelinus alpinus ). The lakes selected included reference lakes and covered the whole country. Besides water sampling in autumn, great effort was put into information of fish status from the same lakes, which resulted in a second paper in Ambio one year later (Henriksen et al. 1989 ). These two papers, where chemical data were directly linked to fish status, gave a basis for the application of a series of models like MAGIC (Model of Acidification of Groundwater in Catchments, Cosby et al. 1985 ) for the prediction of past and future environmental changes caused by acid rain. The monitoring program in Norway chose 100 lakes from these studies, to be followed at regular sampling intervals. Problems occurred, however, as some lakes became influenced by upstream liming or other catchment changes. True references over time are difficult to maintain.

All three papers (Almer et al 1974 ; Schofield 1976 ; Henriksen et al. 1988 ) reflect an environmental status from a time of high S and N deposition, in catchments still in the process of acidification. In the 1970s, before the international acceptance and agreement on reductions in emissions, we were not fully aware of the large time lag between change in precipitation chemistry, catchment reactions, water chemistry change and biological responses. Results from test fishing had revealed reproduction failure nearly 20 years previously to sampling (Rosseland et al. 1980 ). This illustrates that fish status cannot be reliably predicted from present lake chemistry. Prognoses of biological recovery, as depositions became reduced, had therefore to be corrected, as the recovery followed a pattern of hysteresis. Models for restoring a population of Atlantic salmon, ASRAM (“Atlantic Salmon Regional Acidification Model») Korman et al. ( 1994 ) forecasted 12–15 years of recovery, given no episodes of critical water quality for the most sensitive life stage. One critical episode could, however, delay Atlantic salmon recovery by another 10–15 years, a recovery delay also found for brown trout by the FIB-model (Raddum and Rosseland 2005 ). Recovery of fish was consistently associated with increasing pH, reduced Al, increased TOC (Keller et al. 2019 ), but also a decreased Ca concentration (Jeziorski et al. 2008 ). As Ca is a physiological important protective ion for aquatic organisms, this could slow down the biological recovery, partly explaining why fish and invertebrate populations struggled, despite “good” and improved water quality. Today’s practice with downscaling of liming in accordance with the reduced emissions will therefore depend on careful monitoring of the biological communities and their most sensitive species and life history stages for evaluation if end of liming was correct (Anderson et al. 2002 ).

More developed genetic and physiological methods and chemical speciation tools have enabled a deeper understanding of species-, strain- and life history stage sensitivities. The extreme sensitivity towards Al for Atlantic salmon smolts prior to sea migration (Kroglund et al. 2008 ) is caused by the formation of the “supersensitive seawater isoform” of Na–K–ATPase (Nilsen et al. 2010 ), the major ion-regulatory enzymes in gills. Experiences from Al toxicity studies are now a model for testing of other metals, radioactive substances and organic substances in fresh or marine waters.

The scientific era of acidification, starting in the early 1970s and represented by the three papers I reflect on here, forms the basis of many environmental programs until today. Long time series of data (chemistry or biota) based on international protocols, and permanent sites with minimum disturbances, are mandatory for any modelling and forecasting of environmental or climate change. Huge international research programs and manipulation studies, many partly financed by the EU, have studied catchment responses to increased or decreased occurrence of, e.g. S, N, TOC and CO 2 , as well as changing temperature. The development of techniques of detoxifying acid water through lime, silica lye, use of seawater, etc., have been an extremely important factor for the success of Atlantic salmon smolt production worldwide. In 2017, 15% of the wild Atlantic salmon caught by anglers in Norway was in limed rivers.

Data from one of the longest running chemical and biological data series (Lake Saudlandsvatn, Hesthagen et al. 2011 , Fig.  1 ) were used to illustrate positive changes in European environments (Maas and Grennfelt 2016 ) and demonstrated a process of recovery from acidification in biota. However, the figure does not show the lack of older age classes in brown trout, dying after spawning, as a result of still marginal chemical conditions for this sensitive life history stage.

This figure,

modified from Hesthagen et al. ( 2011 ), was used in the report by Maas and Grennfelt ( 2016 ) to illustrate recovery from acidification at Lake Saudlandsvatn, Southern Norway. As sulphur deposition has decreased, so the acid neutralising capacity (ANC) and pH of the lake water have increased, and the populations of the three sensitive species have begun the process of recovery. The figure looks very promising, also for brown trout, but the increase in catch from 1994 and onwards was mainly by young fish. Lacking adult post-spawners indicates marginal chemical conditions to a sensitive life history stage

In 2019, a “new” 1000-lake study was performed in Norway. The legacy from the acidification research will forever be a “lesson to be learnt” for future environmental science programs, and reference for modelling of our future environment.

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Dr. Bo Söderström and Dr. Lars Tranvik for the invitation to contribute to this very important Ambio anniversary collection on “Acid Rain”. As a member of the “International Acid Rain Family” for 45 years, it has been a privilege to work with so many great scientists and students in many of the affected countries. This interdisciplinary field, with open national and international cooperation, funded mainly by Governments, Research Councils and Universities, sets an example for how to cope with today’s and future environmental challenges. A special thanks goes to Dr. Lars Tranvik, Dr. John P. Smol and an anonymous referee, for greatly improving the manuscript.

Dr. Philos, is a Professor Emeritus in Ecotoxicology at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. As a Fish Physiologist, he studied the toxicity as well as mitigation of acid water towards fish from 1975. He has documented contamination of trace metals, POPs, and radioactivity in natural fish populations from five continents. He has since early 1980s taught water quality, ecotoxicology and fish welfare in aquaculture in many countries and held professor positions at three universities, including Canada.

Open Access funding provided by Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

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Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Acid rain has lingering impact on Canadian lakes: study

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Declining levels of calcium in North American lakes, caused in part by acid rain, are having a lasting impact on the food web of these aquatic ecosystems, scientists said Thursday.

Calling the phenomenon "aquatic osteoporosis," Queen's University PhD candidate Adam Jeziorski and research colleagues at Queen's, York University and the federal and provincial environment ministries found a direct relationship between levels of calcium and the abundance of water fleas, tiny crustaceans that are one of the foundations of aquatic food webs.

A lack of calcium in a lake is in part based on its surrounding environment. Lakes in the Canadian Shield, for example, are naturally low in calcium because the surrounding granite bedrock is poor in the mineral.

But external, man-made, activities such as pollution leading to acid rain and logging activities can also lower a lake's calcium levels, said Queen's biology professor John Smol, one of Jeziorski's contributing authors in a paper to be published Friday in the journal Science.

While scientists have known from lab experiments that many organisms need calcium as a nutrient to thrive and reproduce, to date no study had been done to measure the impact of decreased calcium levels on a particular species in the lakes themselves.

Lab results have shown that the water flea, or Daphnia , in particular requires calcium to be present in the water in concentrations of at least 1.5 mg per litre to reproduce effectively.

This made it the ideal creature to study, said Jeziorski, since many lakes in the Canadian Shield were already known to have calcium levels below that threshold. If the declining calcium levels were affecting the population of water fleas, then the scientists should be able to see the declining number of water fleas in the fossil records contained in the lakebeds.

The researchers looked at the lake sediment cores of three lakes: Plastic Lake in south-central Ontario, Little Wiles Lake in Nova Scotia and Big Moose Lake in the state of New York, and in all cases found that a rise in lake acidity led to a decline in calcium and water flea remains.

They also conducted a survey of 770 lakes in north America and found a third of the lakes had calcium levels below 1.5 mg per litre and almost two-thirds at 2.0 mg per litre, suggesting lake acidity may be having a profound impact on the ecosystems.

Even more alarming, says Smol, is the case of Big Moose Lake. While the lake's acidity levels have recovered from a pH of about 4.6 in the 1950s to its current levels of greater than 5.5, the lake has not seen a subsequent return to calcium or water flea levels.

"You've had a chemical recovery but not a biological recovery," he said. "This suggests that things are more complicated and that the problem may be worse than we think."

Jeziorski said the results are an "alarm bell" to the complex and fragile state of our aquatic ecosystems.

"I think acid rain as a topic with the general public has fallen on the backburner, as if it was a problem we had solved 20 years ago," said Jeziorski.

"Our results are a reminder that we are still feeling its legacy," he said.

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Article by H.l Ferguson , D.S. Jeffries

Updated by Sarah-taïssir Bencharif

Published Online August 29, 2013

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Acid rain is the wet or dry deposition of acidic substances and their precursors on the Earth's surface. The ongoing industrialization of society has resulted in the increased release of acidic chemicals into the atmosphere. These chemicals are deposited as acid rain, impacting lakes, forests and human health.

Description

Wet deposition refers to rain , snow , hail , drizzle and other familiar forms of visible precipitation. Dry deposition, mostly invisible, occurs through gravitational settling of large particles, and the uptake of gases and small particles at the Earth's surface. Rain and other precipitation may be defined as acidic or alkaline (basic) depending on the chemical composition. The degree of acidity is usually measured on the pH scale, a logarithmic measure of the concentration of hydrogen ions (H+) in precipitation. A neutral solution has a pH of seven. Acidic solutions have values below seven and basic solutions have values above seven. For each change of one pH unit, the hydrogen ion content changes by a factor of 10. A clean water sample in equilibrium with atmospheric carbon dioxide will have a value of 5.6, and this is often used as a definition of "clean" rain. When values differ from this, it means that other substances, either natural or man-made, are present in the rain.

Current annual measurements of the average pH of precipitation in the northern hemisphere range from about 4.0 to 7.0. The lower, highly acidic values occur primarily over, and immediately downwind, of urban and industrialized areas in North America, Europe and Asia. Higher pH values in precipitation are found over less industrialized regions where the atmosphere contains larger amounts of alkaline dust. The primary cause of low pH in precipitation over northeastern North America is sulphuric acid (H 2 SO 4 ) from industrial and urban emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO 2 ). Nitric acid (HNO 3 ) generated from emissions of nitrogen oxides (NO x ) is a significant contributing factor in this region. In Canada, as in many other countries, the majority of NO x emissions are from transportation. Acid rain’s precursors, SO 2 and NO x , can be transported thousands of kilometres through the atmosphere, returning to Earth as dry or wet deposition.

Emissions Over Time

Canadian emissions of SO 2 in 2011 were 1.85 million tonnes, down from 2.2 million tonnes in 2006. As a point of comparison, in 2011 SO 2 emissions in the US were 6.28 million tonnes, down from 12 million tonnes in 2006. Fuel for electricity and heating, as well as non-ferrous smelters (producing such metals as nickel and copper are the largest sources of SO 2 emissions in Canada, followed closely by emissions produced by the oil and gas sector.

In terms of NO x emissions, Canada produced 1.94 million tonnes in 2011, compared to 2.3 million tonnes in 2006. The US produced about the same in 2011 (1.94 million tonnes), compared to 3.4 million tonnes in 2006. The largest sources of NO x emissions in Canada are transportation vehicles (including cars, trains, planes and boats), and the oil and gas industry.

Effects of Acid Rain

When acid rain reaches the Earth's surface, it can cause damage to aquatic ecosystems and buildings. Acid rain and its associated pollutants (SO 2 , NO x , sulphate particles and ozone) can also damage forests and crops , and there is evidence of adverse human health effects. The degree of effects depends on the acid-reducing capability of the receptor (e.g., vegetation, soils, rock, lakes and streams). In areas where this buffering capacity is low, like the Canadian Shield , acidic deposition over several years has led to increased acidity of rivers and lakes, and to the accelerated leaching of aluminum from soils . This is seen most in the surface waters of southeastern Canada, where acid rain levels are highest. However, SO 2 emissions in western Canada have increased to the point that vulnerable lakes in this region may also be threatened.

Aquatic life is dependent on the balanced pH of surface waters. Once the pH falls below approximately 5.5, both the amount and diversity of vegetation, zooplankton, amphibians and fish decreases. The aluminum leached from soils may also be in a form that is toxic to aquatic organisms. Once the average pH of a lake drops to around 4.5, most fish populations are eradicated due to reproductive failure or the disappearance of suitable food sources. Fish populations in thousands of lakes in eastern North America and Scandinavia have declined or disappeared because of water acidification, and hundreds of thousands more are threatened. Rivers are impacted as well. This is seen in the marked decline of ATLANTIC SALMON in the Maritimes and in Scandinavia. Birds and other fish predators may decrease in numbers because of this reduced food supply.

Reductions in North American SO 2 emissions could suggest that aquatic ecosystems will soon recover from acidification. However, this is not the case. Only lakes located near smelters with dramatically reduced emissions approach this expectation. Most lakes are only affected by long-range emissions and so far, they show relatively small increases in pH. This delay in the chemical recovery of lakes is due to several geochemical factors related to the storage or release of acids, or bases from the forest soils and wetlands that surround these lakes. Biological recovery in lakes does not necessarily follow chemical recovery. The only extensive evidence of biological recovery is in lakes from the Sudbury/Killarney region of Ontario .

The effects of acid rain and its associated pollutants on forests and agriculture are not as clear-cut, but are potentially serious. These include direct damage to plant foliage, seed germination failure, retardation of growth (particularly at early life stages), deterioration of plant roots associated with the leaching of soil constituents and, possibly, increased plant susceptibility to insects and diseases.

There are several potential effects of acid rain on human health. The lead , copper and other metals from water delivery pipes can leach and contaminate acidified drinking water. Increased concentrations of heavy metals in fish from acidified rivers and lakes can pose a problem for populations consuming significant quantities of these fish.

Control Methods

Methods available to reduce SO 2 emissions include: the use of low-sulphur coal and oil; the removal of sulphur from fuel and feeder ore; the use of technologies that remove the SO 2 at the source of emission, like flue-gas desulphurization techniques; energy conservation; and the use of alternative energy sources. North American techniques for controlling acid rain precursors focus primarily at reducing near-source air concentrations to levels necessary to avoid immediate and short-term impacts on human health (see Air Pollution ). The installation of pollution control devices and the building of taller emission stacks were effective in achieving the goal of improved air quality in North American cities. However, the taller stacks disperse SO 2 and NO x emissions over large regions, and the emission standards for the short-term protection of human health are inadequate for the protection of affected regional environments and longer-term human health.

Emissions of SO 2 in both Canada and the US decreased through the early 1970s to the present as a result of the increased use of pollution control devices, the use of more low-sulphur fuels and the introduction of some nuclear power plants. These drops in SO 2 emissions have reduced acid rain levels and allowed the chemical recovery of some eastern Canadian lakes, thereby demonstrating the potential effectiveness of further control actions. In the absence of new controls, and the expansion of SO 2 emission sources (e.g., in western Canada), the cumulative acidification effects on regional environments remain a serious problem. In addition, there has been little reduction in NO x emissions over North America.

Setting Control Targets

In 1983, as a first step in controlling the effects of acid rain on surface waters, Canada adopted a target load of 20 kg of wet sulphate per hectare per year. It was estimated that a reduction of deposition rates to this value would protect moderately sensitive lake ecosystems and could be achieved by reducing North American SO 2 emissions by about 50 percent. The eastern Canadian provinces and the federal government signed several federal-provincial agreements in 1987 aiming to reduce emissions by 50 percent by 1994. Since 1990, Canada has used a more precise standard called the "critical load." The critical load is the highest amount of pollutants an ecosystem can tolerate without exhibiting negative ecosystem effects. For lakes located on the Canadian Shield, the critical load is almost always less than the 1983 target load, and it varies spatially depending on the acid sensitivity of the surrounding terrain.

About one-half of the sulphate deposition in eastern Canada comes from SO 2 sources in the US. Therefore, control action in the US was needed for Canada to achieve its target loading goal. After years of pressure from Canada, in November 1990 the United States government passed a new Clean Air Act promising to reduce SO 2 emissions by 50 percent by 2000. The following year, the two nations signed the Canada-US Air Quality Agreement, which further codified the reductions in S0 2 and N0 x emissions. In 1998, the federal, provincial and territorial ministers of Energy and Environment agreed to "The Canada-Wide Acid Rain Strategy for Post-2000," which has the long-term goal of reducing acid rain to meet the critical load standard. This means that much greater SO 2 emission reductions than those presently required by legislation will be needed to promote widespread chemical and later, biological recovery.

In 1985, Canada signed the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (ECE) Helsinki Protocol to reduce its sulphur compounds (or the export of these compounds to other countries via the atmosphere) by 1993. In 1994, Canada signed the Oslo Protocol to cap sulphur emissions at 1.75 million tonnes in geographic regions contributing to acidification in Canada and the US. This area includes Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Acid rain is but one manifestation of the increasing effects of human-made chemicals on the composition of the global atmosphere. Other anthropogenic effects associated with growing industrialization include Arctic haze , climate change and the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer (see Ozone Depletion ). These changes in regional and global environments, and their socio-economic impacts, are attracting increasing international attention.

See also Sudbury, Greater .

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Acid rain: causes and effects

Acid rain occurs when acid-containing precipitation falls onto the earth’s surface. Precipitation comes in the form of rain, snow, sleet, or hail. Precipitation collects acidic particles and gases and becomes acidic. These particles will have a pH level below 5.6.

There are two types of deposition processes: wet and dry. Acid rain is wet deposition. Wet deposition causes erosion that affects ecosystems. Dry deposition occurs when small acid particles and gases fall onto the earth’s surface. Gases such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides change into acids when they contact water.

Acid deposition occurs when sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions transform into secondary pollutants. Examples of such pollutants are sulphuric acid, ammonium nitrate, and nitric acid. These pollutants then fall onto land, water, vegetation, or structures. 

Acid deposition can damage:

• lakes and rivers
• fish and wildlife populations

Before falling to the earth, acid-causing emissions (sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxide gases and the related acid particles) contribute to haze and smog and affect public health. Acid deposition is a problem in many parts of Canada since emissions that contribute to acid rain can travel thousands of kilometres from their source.

More than half of Canadian geology consists of vulnerable hard rock (i.e., granite) areas that offer poor natural defenses from the damaging effects of acid deposition. Many of the waters (streams, rivers, ponds, and lakes) and soils in Canada lack natural alkalinity, such as a lime base, and cannot neutralize acid naturally.

Provinces that are part of the Canadian Precambrian Shield, such as Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, are most affected. Lakes and soils found in areas of the Canadian Shield in northeastern Alberta, northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and parts of western British Columbia, are also sensitive to acid deposition.

Related Links

• Canada-United States Air Quality Agreement
• Acid rain and related issues
• Acid rain history
• Reducing acid rain

Page details

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Oil Sands Extraction in Alberta, Canada: a Review of Impacts and Processes Concerning Indigenous Peoples

• Published: 23 February 2019
• Volume 47 , pages 233–243, ( 2019 )

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We review literature about Canada’s oil sands, pertaining to Indigenous Peoples. We draw on a range of recent published and unpublished sources. We find that social science research on oil sands extraction has been inadequate, even as the region has undergone transformation. Available research suggests that Indigenous communities feel resigned to further loss of their subsistence landbase. Due to the rapid pace of expansion, emergent issues and questions exist that cannot be readily synthesized. Decision-makers are not specialists in Indigenous issues or social impacts, and are not always supported by experts within their organizations. There is a need to review the qualifications of some social science consultants who work on impact assessment and consultation. The most vulnerable Indigenous people and communities face worrying health risks and evident pollution as they lose access to special places and preferred sources of food and water, entailing loss of cultural, spiritual, and familial connections.

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Acknowledgements

We extend our gratitude for library and archival support provided by Bigstone Cree Nation, Mikisew Cree First Nation, the Government of Alberta, Athabasca University, the University of Alberta, the University of Calgary, and the University of Saskatchewan. We thank Josie Auger, Janelle Baker, Jesse Cardinal, Melanie Dene, Patricia McCormack, Joanne Muzak, Mary Richardson, Glenn Stuart, Jim Waldram, and Katherine Wheatley for their comments on this draft and a previous draft. We also acknowledge comments from an anonymous reviewer. This research was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. This article contains excerpts from a larger report (Joly and Westman 2017 ).

This study was funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (grant number 872–2016-004).

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Westman, C.N., Joly, T.L. Oil Sands Extraction in Alberta, Canada: a Review of Impacts and Processes Concerning Indigenous Peoples. Hum Ecol 47 , 233–243 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10745-019-0059-6

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Scientific study on acid rain and subsequent pH-imbalances in humans, case studies, treatments

• Ingegerd Rosborg 1  

European Journal of Clinical Nutrition volume  74 ,  pages 87–94 ( 2020 ) Cite this article

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Acid Rain attacked South West Sweden 1960–1990, making well water acid, causing Cu dissolution from pipes, disturbing intestines. In a scientific study Ca was 6 times higher in alkaline well waters and hair. Women drinking acid water were unhealthy.

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Case studies: 1 (woman): Scleroderma had caused shortened finger tips, and loss of hair. Urinary pH was 5. Hair analysis showed severe mineral imbalances. After 1.5 years of treatment with supplements and increasing urinary pH with NaHCO 3 , symptoms disappeared. 2 (woman): Fibromyalgia, cataract, constipation and basal carcinoma was treated by increasing urinary pH with limestone, and supplements. 3 (man). Fe in drinking water, 3.4 mg/L, had caused intestinal disturbances and subsequent symptoms. Fe was elevated in hair. Aloe vera juice, lactic bacteria and digestive enzymes healed his intestines. Mg, antagonist to Fe, decreased severity of Fe overload. Drinking water guideline of 0.2 mg Fe/L is suggested.

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This article is published as part of a supplement sponsored by NuOmix-Research k.s. The conference was financially supported by Protina Pharmazeutische GmbH, Germany and Sirius Pharma, Germany, and organised by NuOmix-Research k.s. Neither company had any role in writing of the manuscript.

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Case studies were done in nutrient therapy, and not in school medicine. Case study 1 had died when this article was written. Case study 2 could not be found. Case study 3 was the writer.

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Rosborg, I. Scientific study on acid rain and subsequent pH-imbalances in humans, case studies, treatments. Eur J Clin Nutr 74 (Suppl 1), 87–94 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41430-020-0690-8

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