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ACID RAIN DAMAGE FAR WORSE THAN PREVIOUSLY BELIEVED, USA
Medical News Today
July 17, 2005

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=27550

Amid the recent hoopla over the EPA and Bush administration's plans to make
it easy for power plants, oil refineries and chemical factories (major
sources of acid rain nationwide) to expand without installing new pollution
controls and the Senate's consideration of Clean Power Act, there's an
important new wrinkle to the story.

A new study revealed that acid rain's damage to America's forests may be
much more widespread than previously believed. It may actually create
conditions in trees similar to compromised immune systems in humans,
establishing a vulnerably with grave potential implications.

"As with immune-compromised humans, plants may appear and function as if
they were healthy, until exposed to even a routine stress or disease, then
experience declines far more exaggerated than expected," says Donald
DeHayes, Dean and Professor in the School of Natural Resources at The
University of Vermont. DeHayes co-authored a study in the most recent issue
of the journal "Ecosystem Health" released in June at an international
conference on Ecosystem and Human Health in Washington, DC, which was
attended by about 1000 environmental scientists and policy makers.

Up to now, acid rain has been associated with the decline of forests in
certain specific locations. DeHayes and colleagues, UVM senior researcher
Gary Hawley and USDA Forest Service scientist and UVM adjunct faculty Paul
Schaberg previously documented the mechanism through which acid rain
depletes calcium and weakens high elevation red spruce trees, making them
more vulnerable to winter freezing injury.

Their new work shows that this mechanism is also applicable to other tree
species, including balsam fir, white pine, and eastern hemlock. Because
calcium is a critical ingredient in the plant's stress response system, acid
rain's depletion of cellular calcium may suppress the capacity of trees to
survive environmental stresses.

This connection between calcium deficiency and environmental stress exposure
are common components in the declines of several tree species, including red
spruce, sugar maple, and flowering dogwood. Their "immune response"
hypothesis provides an overarching explanation of how acid rain ultimately
threatens forests. The findings are especially relevant now because a
growing assortment of human influences -- climate change, pollutants, and
new pests and diseases, are burdening our forests.

"If extensive, the decline of individual species would radiate through plant
communities," says DeHayes. "It would alter the competition and survival of
populations, perhaps even species, including animals at higher levels of the
forest food chains." DeHayes points out those calcium deficiencies in plants
are passed on to herbivores, altering their nutrition. For instance, birds
eating calcium- deficient plant material might have less calcium for egg
production. Insects could experience weaker exoskeletons. Mammals could have
weaker bones or change in the quantity or quality of milk production. The
problems continue through the ecosystem and into economic system.

Ironically, the research was funded through the US Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) with long-term support of Vermont Sen. James Jeffords (I-VT).

"This important new research shows the insidious harm that acid rain is
causing to our trees and wildlife," says Jeffords. We know how to stop acid
rain, but have not had the will to do so." Jeffords, chairman of the
Environment and Public Works Committee, is legislating for the Clean Power
Act, which he co-authored and introduced in March 2001.

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Published by David Sunfellow
NewHeavenNewEarth (NHNE)
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