US could see return of acid rain if pollution rules are quashed, says scientist who first discovered it | Pollution

The United States can return to the era of toxic acid rain, an environmental problem believed to have been solved decades ago, due to the decline in the Donald Trump administration in protecting pollution, warned the world that discovered acid rain in North America.

Blitzkrieg Firing Through the Trump Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) at clean air and water regulations, the United States can return to a time when cities were routinely carried in smoky fog and even helping to introduce acid rain, according to Jane Likins, whose experiences helped to determine acid rain water in the 1960s.

While severe air quality improvements in America were apparently the rains of the acid for a problem belonging to The era of two branchesLikens said if the rules that intensify the toxic emissions of power stations, cars and trucks are tightly limited, the acid rain ghost can chase the United States again.

“I am very worried about happening, it is definitely not impossible to happen,” Lilins 90, to the Guardian newspaper. Likens still participates in a long -term monitoring project, and extends to 1976, to taste rain water, but this program has just been funded by the Trump administration.

“I hope we will not return to the old days, so these declines are very dangerous,” Lilins said. ))

It was in 1963 when Likens, as a young scientist, took samples of rain water in the Hubbard Brook experimental forest in the white mountains in New Hampshire and found it 100 times more acid than expected. “This was really” A-H! “The moment we led us to question what was happening.”

Years The subsequent study by networks Other scientists have confirmed that pollution that extends from coal -powered power plants in the Middle West was transferred by the wind, primarily to the eastern United States and Canada. The reaction of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides in pollution with water and oxygen was to form sulfuric acids and nitrics, and gathered with water to fall to the ground As acid rain.

By 1980, the average rainfall in the United States It was 10 times more acid than usualWith a devastating environmental effect. Lakes and tables are very acidic to support fish and amphibians, and foodstuffs were stripped of soil and trees affected by rain, trees and even buildings.

She detained a national protest on acid rain, as the cartoonists in the umbrellas that resolve and install the evidence presented by Likens and others in public talks ultimately.

In 1990, and to update To the clean air law that targets acid rain by reducing the pollution of the power plant, it was approved by Congress and signed by President George HW Bush, a Republican. “Every city in America must have clean air,” said Bush, which signs the bill. “With this legislation, I think a firm belief that we will do.”

“The rains of acid are an example of a major environmental success story – the audience spoke and the politicians have listened,” said Lianz. Recent samples of rain and soil in the white mountain area show that acidity levels have decreased by 85 % since the peak period in the seventies, although Likens said the soil It is still deteriorating Any return from acid rain to ecosystems in this fragile state will be disastrous.

“If the Trump administration begins to launch emissions, we will destroy this success story,” he said.

The Environmental Protection Agency plan to eliminate or weaken 31 regulations, a step called “direct dagger in the heart of the climate change” by the agency official, Lee Zeladen, Several thousand of additional deaths, a group of heart, lung and other diseases risk riskAccording to estimates of the Environmental Protection Agency for the benefits of rules.

However, the precise measure of the decline will take several years and the court’s battles become completely clear. The United States, also, is a country that is completely different from the country that preceded the Environmental Protection Agency in 1970, when it is contaminated by the outbreak of air Plot Outside the sky in cities like New York, Los Angeles and the rivers were so contaminated The fire caught.

The main air pollutants have It has decreased in recent decadesDue to the regulations as well as the technological promotions of the power plants and the incentive transformers of vehicles. Coal, at the same time, He rejected As an energy source in favor of burning gas and renewable energy, although Trump sought this Stymie clean energy and Help Revival charcoal, most fossil fuel types.

“I don’t think we will see acid rain again because I do not think there will be a return to coal – the main beneficiary of relaxation in regulations is gas,” said William Riley, who was the official of the Environmental Protection Agency in 1990 when federal rains were taken.

Riley said that the amendments to the clean air law were a victory “over the house” for public health and a high point of cooperation between the two parties between Republicans and Democrats in the environment. He added that the Trump administration is now seeking to take the United States radically different.

“I think this administration will return us to the pre -EPA world,” said Riley. “This will mean an unbelieving air, and the places where there is pollution you can see, the rivers that burn. This is what was before and this is what it could be again if the enforcement is reduced.”

Other scientists said that the return of acid rain was possible, although it would be gradual, not immediate. “It is not as if you were going to wake up tomorrow and will be in 1975 in terms of acid rain, but we can move in this direction,” said Richard Pelitier, an environmental scientist at Massachusetts University.

“It will take several years, but why do we want to do that? It is frustrating because we know that the quality of the improved air is good for the public. There is now a view that scientists are the wicked, and that science is corrupt – incorrect things.”

Many rules aimed at reflecting by the Trump Environmental Protection Agency aim to reduce large amounts of sulfur dioxide, among other pollutants, such as Standards About charcoal emissions. “We are not sure how much Mr. Zildin thinks about taking this,” said Murray McBraide, the world of crops and soil at Cornell University. “It will take a dramatic decline to allow a lot of sulfur dioxide, but this is possible.”

After alerting Americans to the dangers Curry Institute for Ecological System Studies) To do more research.

At Cornell University, he then created a separate surveillance system, near New York fingers, which has been operating since 1976, but was funded this month by the National Oceanic and Air Country Administration (NOAA) as part of the Trump administration’s effort to reduce the size of the government.

“There was no explanation given the reason for reducing funding and I am not sure whether we can continue the project,” Lilis, who runs this work himself alongside two technicians. “If we have no funding to look at what is happening, we are just blind. It is a horrific way for the country to go.”

Likens continues to make lectures, often for people who were not born when acid rain was a big problem in the United States. “I try to explain to them that this was one of the few environmental success stories that we have,” he said. “To see that this is only sad. It makes me very sad.”

A spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency has not answered questions about a possible return of acid rain or how the agency will ensure that more people will not get sick or die due to regulatory declines.

“The United States can protect the environment and develop the economy at the same time,” the spokesman said, adding that the declines were “the greatest and most of them than the standard cancellation parties in American history.”

“This is a very important change in the previous administration’s attempts to close US energy and make our citizens more dependent on foreign fossil fuels, which leads to worse environmental results in the world, and billions in new financing for many of our nation’s opponents at the expense of all Americans, and at least economic pain.”