$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. The rate of forest growth in the White Mountains of New Hampshire has declined 18% between 1956 and 1965, a time of increasingly intense acidic rainfall. 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 of radishes wither. Acid rain is eating away stone monuments and concrete structures, and corroding the pipes, which channel the water away to the lakes, and the cycle is repeated. Paints on houses and automobiles have their lives reduced by nearly half, due to the pollution in the atmosphere speeding up the corrosion process. In some communities the drinking water is laced with toxic metals, which have been freed from metal pipes by the acidity. As if urban skies were not already gray enough, typical visibility has declined from 10 to 4 miles, along the Eastern seaboard, as acid rain turns into smog. There are indicators that the components of acid rain are a health risk, linked to human respiratory disease.Although there is very little data, the evidence indicates that in the last twenty to thirty years the acidity of rain has increased in many parts of the United S...
