ll. Storms in Pennsylvania have an average rainfall pH at 2.8, which almost have the same rating for vinegar. Already 140 Ontario lakes are completely dead or dying. An additional 48,000 are sensitive and vulnerable to acid rain due to the surrounding concentrated acidic soils. Canada does not have as many people, power plants or automobiles as the United States, and yet acid rain there has become so severe that Canadian government officials called it the most pressing environmental issue facing the nation. It is important to bear in mind that acid rain is only one segment of the widespread pollution of the atmosphere facing the world. In Canada, Ontario has lost fish in an estimated 4,000 lakes, and provincial authorities calculate that Ontario stands to lose fish in 48,500 more lakes within the next twenty years if acid rain continues at the present rate. However, Ontario is not alone. On Nova Scotia's Eastern most shores, almost every river flowing to the Atlantic Ocean is poisoned with acid, further threatening a $2 million a year fishing industry. Acid rain is killing more than lakes. It can scar the leaves of hardwood forests, wither ferns and lichens, accelerate the death of coniferous needles, sterilize seeds, and weaken the forests to a state that is vulnerable to disease, infestation, and decay. In the soil the acid neutralizes chemicals vital for growth, strips others from the soil and carries them to the lakes, and literally retards the respiration of the soil. However, acid rain doesn't exclusively fall on the lakes, forests, and thin soils of the Northeast -- it now covers more than half of the continent. There is evidence that the rain is destroying the productivity of the once rich soils themselves, like an overdose of chemical fertilizer, or a gigantic drenching of vinegar. The damage of such overdosing may not be repairable or reversible. On some croplands, tomatoes grow to only half their full weight, and the leaves o...
