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Relief for Acid Lakes
| Article
# : |
10402 |
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Section : |
NATURAL SCIENCE
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1986 |
1,902 Words |
| Author
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Joseph Alper
Joseph Alper is a freelance science writer who lives in
Baltimore, Maryland. |
On May 23, 1986, a solitary boat crisscrossed the surface of Wolf Pond, a 50-acre lake in the Adirondack Mountains of upstate New York. As the boat made its way over the pond's surface, workers aboard dumped 4.5 tons of baking soda into the waters--a measure of preventive medicine for a lake that two years ago was very ill.
Five days later, several hundred hybrid Canadian trout became the first fish to swim in Wolf Pond in a decade. These yearlings, about 12 inches long, represent the final stage in a daring experiment that could help thousands of ailing lakes and streams throughout the northeastern quarter of the United States, bodies of water that have been poisoned by acid rain.
Decades ago, the waters of upstate New York supported thriving populations of fish and other aquatic life. Today, many of these lakes and streams are without fish--victims of abnormally high acidity that many blame on acid rain.
New Life
Some of those lakes are now beginning to teem with fish again, thanks to the efforts of two groups of scientists at Cornell University. Using baking soda and lime--one a simple household product, the other a common farm substance--the researchers are trying to neutralize the high acidity of lakes the way antacids soothe upset stomachs.
"Lakes impacted by acid rain are a serious environmental problem in sensitive areas in the northeastern United States," says Carl Schofield, a fishery biologist and one of the researchers using lime to improve conditions in the lakes. "The Adirondack Mountains region of New York is considered one of the most severely impacted areas with at least 200 lakes completely devoid of fish, and many others slowly losing their fish populations."
Schofield and coworker Steven Gloss have treated (or neutralized) ten lakes with agricultural lime and then restocked them with fish. James Bisogni, Jr., associate professor of environmental engineering, has used baking soda--sodium bicarbonate--for the same purpose.
Both teams of researchers acknowledge that their strategies won't solve the long-term problems of these lakes, since they do nothing to prevent acidic compounds from entering the lakes. Their efforts may, however, provide interim management strategies until permanent solutions can be
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