GOVERNMENT
Concern Mounts Over Acid Rain Control Strategy Scientists say damage to forests may be key problem and that sulfur dioxide curb is too narrow an approach; research budget cuts feared The long-raging debate on whether, when, or how to control acid rain has been narrowly focused and based on a false though simplistically appealing dichotomy: The nation must either conduct more research to resolve lingering scientific uncertainties or proceed to legislate controls on the one indicted pollutant class, sulfur oxides. But scientists and managers of acid rain
NEWS ANALYSIS research argue that even when control laws are enacted, research will be needed to monitor the effectiveness of the controls or to signal the need for additional ones. Yet, for the most part, these same individuals fear that acid rain research budgets are likely to be slashed after November, no matter who is elected President. As one program manager explains, if President Reagan is re-elected, "the heat will be off the Administration and it can drop its researchonly stance." And if Walter Mondale wins the election or the Democrats regain control of both houses of Congress, both Richard Ayres, chairman of the National Clean Air Coalition, and Sen. George Mitchell's (D.-Maine) press secretary, John Trattner, expect an acid rain control bill to sail through the legislative 18
September 3, 1984 C&EN
maze next year. However, the program manager, who asks to go unnamed, says, "Once Congress takes action, research budgets can wither away." If history is any guide, that legislative action will be perceived as a solution to the problem of acid rain. But, so far, all the bills tossed into Congressional hoppers call only for control of sulfur emissions. Such sulfur dioxide controls are aimed at reviving ailing lakes and streams, and also will help to improve human health and atmospheric visibility. Certainly, these are not minor benefits. But this narrow strategy is likely to have only a small beneficial effect on what is emerging as the central focus of acid rain/regional air pollution problems—forest productivity decline. Says Christopher Bernabo, executive director of the National Acid Precipitation Assessment Program, "Most of the legislation has been far too narrowly focused to cure many of the ills attributed to sulfur dioxide and acid rain." The assessment program has long recognized this, he says, and so its fastest growing part is research aimed at a "better understanding of the scope and some indication as to the cause of the damage to forests" from air pollution, including acid rain. Probing the science of air pollution-induced damage to forests is even more complex and convoluted than teasing answers from the conundrum of acid rain and aquatic systems. Forest damage is likely to involve some combination of sulfurbased acid rain as well as nitrogen and its oxides, ozone, and heavy metals. Yet there are no models, for example, to explain the long-range transport of nitrates. Nor is there a good understanding of the role local sources play in forest damage.
Acid rain is thought to be cause of death of spruces in Vermont Local sources in rural and remote forest areas translate to emissions from automotive tailpipes, not industrial smokestacks. There are technologies to control tailpipe emissions, including the culprits implicated in forest damage. Yet trucks currently are exempt from nitrogen oxide controls, and the Reagan Administration is proposing to relax controls on nitrogen oxide emissions from automobiles. The situation is different for industrial smokestacks. Here, there are no practical control technologies to curb nitrogen oxide emissions. This is in sharp contrast to the situation for sulfur emissions controls on stationary sources. Such controls are generally available though costly. So addressing the potential problem of forest decline will demand a quantum "shift in the political questions asked and the control strategies proposed," says a science administrator very familiar with the
acid rain issue. Pivotal to that de bate will be the role played by the forest products industry. To date that industry has public ly represented itself as being victim ized by strict and costly environ mental regulations, not as the vic tim of air pollution. That's because there has been "no strong evidence of productivity decline or a causeand-effect relationship between acid rain and [commercial] forest dam age," explains Barry F. Malac, Union Camp's technical director for wood lands. But there are suggestive hints that air pollution may be harming commercially valuable forests. And that circumstantial evidence is sen sitizing and galvanizing the forest products industry. "There's no question that acid rain is part of the general air pollution problem and could potentially have some deleterious effects on forest productivity," Malac says. His in dustry, he admits, is "in the unique position of contributing to the over all problem of air pollution and being a recipient of it. We are going to address the issue head on." The industry will do this through the newly formed National Council of the Paper Industry for Air & Stream Improvement. By the time this arti cle is published, the council will have met with the U.S. Forest Service, which is part of the nation al acid rain program. Nitrogen's role in forest damage is likely to be complex. Its oxides can react with volatile hydrocarbons in an array of chemical reactions that ultimately lead to the forma tion of ozone, an oxidant known to affect plant life adversely. Nitrogen deposition itself may directly affect trees, possibly by acting as gover nor to the uptake by root systems of other essential nutrients. There is "good, convincing evi dence" only for implicating acid rain/regional air pollution in the deterioration of high-elevation for ests in the eastern U.S., says Ellis Cowling, associate dean for research at Nort ι Carolina State University's School of Forest Research. There is "suggestive but not convincing evi dence to suspect that lower-elevation forests in [the Southeast] may be affected by air pollution," he adds. According to Malac, that sugges
tive evidence is the U.S. Forest Service's charting of declines in ra dial growth of short leaf pine in South Carolina, Georgia, and Ala bama. But the reduction in tree trunk diameters may be due to the aging of the trees, crowding and competition, or drought, Malac says. The Forest Service study "doesn't account for these factors," Malac explains. Certainly, he says, the in dustry in the Southeast sees none of the symptoms "laid to acid rain" at the higher elevations. "We see no die back, no thinning of the crowns of trees. There has been a decline in inventories, but that's be cause people haven't replanted trees," he says. Because commercial U.S. forests have not yet been hard hit, the pulp and paper industry is taking a waitand-see attitude on acid rain's role in forest productivity decline. It is, however, beginning to view itself "as a net receiver rather than a pri mary emitter of air pollution," says Cowling. At some point, though, the suggestive evidence is likely to solidify into hard facts documenting economic losses in commercial forests. When that happens—when, as one commentator says, the forest products industry sees itself "raped by air pollution"—then the balance will be tipped in the acid rain/re gional air pollution debate. Then, the more politically and more tech nically difficult questions will have to be addressed. Then, says Bernabo, it may be per ceived more clearly that "research and an appropriate environmental policy are needed to solve the problem." Environmental groups be lieve such a policy begins with a sulfur-emissions-based acid rain con trol law. But as Cowling cautions, it would be foolhardy for the country to believe the acid rain/air pollu tion problem to be solved once low er sulfur emissions are mandated by law. What is needed, he says, is "an integrated policy involving con trols on emissions of sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen, volatile organic compounds, and heavy metals." The benefits to be reaped from such a policy are improved health, less acidification of aquatic systems, less gaseous pollutant damage to crops and forests, less damage to materi
als (buildings, statues), and im proved visibility, he argues. To achieve such a policy requires a strong and steady research pro gram. In fiscal 1984, the U.S. is spending $27.5 million on acid rain research. The Environmental Pro tection Agency alone has just asked for supplemental funds that will bring its acid rain research expen ditures to about $5 million in 1984. The prevailing fear, even within EPA, that research funds will tail off after the November election is still just that: fear. Cowling doesn't "see how any Administration, no matter of which political party, could decrease research funds in any significant way." Courtney Riordan, EPA's acid rain research program director, is more circumspect. "We will maintain a base of research in acid rain," he says. "But whether that base will be higher or lower than current funding will depend on political decisions over which we have no control." Lois Ember, Washington
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