Acid Rain 4

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the most prevalent is the theory that electric generating plants, heating plants, and other industrial plants have been emitting an excess amount of sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic chemicals (VOC’s) into the atmosphere. Once these chemicals are in the air, they react with water to form acids and fall back to the earth as precipitation. People who believe acid rain is a natural phenomenon do so because of the fact that carbon dioxide in the air combines with water vapor and produces carbonic acid (Bolch 95).
There are several environmental risks that come with acid rain. One of these is the acidification of lakes, resulting in the lakes’ inability to sustain the aquatic life. In fact, Norway reported that 18,000 out of 85,000 of their lakes were acidified, and more than half of their fish population has disappeared (Brunee 23). Ground water can also become more acidic because of the way acid rain depletes the natural buffer system of the soil. Studies ...

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pollutants, as well as establishing a new permitting program for stationary sites of industrial air pollution. These sources of air pollution were now required to have an EPA-issued operating permit that specified allowable emissions (Kraft 87). These governmental controls have
effectively reduced air pollution in our country, but at what cost? Writer, Michael E. Kraft asks the question that burns in many of our minds. “How clean is clean enough? How safe is safe enough, considering available technology and costs?” Initiatives to help meet proposed air quality standards are extremely costly, and they impose substantial burdens on the state and local government. The level of ...

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