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From: wmartin@brl-smoke.ARPA (Will Martin )
Newsgroups: net.sci,net.bio
Subject: Acid rain damage query
Message-ID: <202@brl-smoke.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 22-Apr-86 15:22:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: brl-smok.202
Posted: Tue Apr 22 15:22:02 1986
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Apr-86 16:39:17 EDT
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Organization: USAMC ALMSA, St. Louis, MO
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Xref: linus net.sci:458 net.bio:276

Publicity about acid rain indicates that some types of pollution cause
rainfall to become acidic enough that lakes which collect such rainfall
eventually themselves turn acidic enough to kill off the natural biota
and become nearly sterile. How acidic is this? I ask this because of a
fact mentioned in the recent PBS National Geographic special on the
Okeefenokee swamp -- the statement was made there that this swamp water
was "as acid as strong tea". Yet, even though acidic, this area teems
with life. Are the lakes damaged by acid rain more acidic than this
swamp water? If not, is it just because they are in colder climates that
the (seemingly) acid-tolerating lifeforms that flourish in the acid
swamp cannot live in these more-northerly acidified lakes? Or could such
acid-tolerating biota be introduced into those lakes and create a new
ecosystem that could survive the acidification? (And that this would
happen naturally, given long enough time, but these areas are sterile
now just because the acid-tolerating biota haven't yet been introduced?)

Will