tario's Muskoka-Haliburton lake country ranges between 3.95 and 4.38, which is about 40 times more acidic than normal rainfall. 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. Each year the global atmosphere is on the receiving end of 20 billion tons of carbon dioxide, 130 million tons of suffer dioxide, 97 million tons of hydrocarbons, 53 million tons of nitrogen oxides, more than three million tons of arsenic, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel, zinc and other toxic metals, and a host of synthetic organic compounds ranging from polychlorinated biphenyl's (PCBs), to toxaphene and other pesticides -- a number of which may be capable of causing cancer, birth defects, or genetic imbalances.Interactions of pollutants can cause problems. In addition to contributing to acid rain, nitrogen oxides can react with hydrocarbons to produce ozone, a major air pollutant responsible in the United States for annual losses of $2 billion to 4.5 billion worth of wheat, corn, soybeans, and peanuts. 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...
