TRIBUNE FEATURE SUPPLEMENT

Acid rain kills. It has the ability to
destroy fish, erode buildings, stunt
forests, damage crops and release
heavy metals in the environment. Acid
rain can even affect our health.

Acid rain is acknowledged by almost
everyone — with the possible excep-
tion of President Reagan — as one of
the greatest threats to North America’s
lakes and forests. The environmental
price tag even today is enormous, and
tomorrow looms truly staggering if no-
thing is done.

The loss of healthy lakes and forests
to acid rain is tragic — and more than
just aesthetic. It means financial hard-
ship for tourist camp operators, fishing
guides, commercial fisherman, loggers
and Native peoples whose livelihoods
are closely tied to Canada’s acid-sensi-
tive environment. And the bill is even
higher when we add the costs of repairs
to architecture and statues, damages to
human health and losses in the forest
industry.

With all the clamor about acid rain,
few people are aware of exactly what it
is. Acid rain is the common term to
describe all forms of precipitation —
hail, rain, snow, fog — that have be-
come increasingly acidic as a result of
industrial air pollution.

Although all precipitation is slightly
acidic, the acidity is substantially in-
creased where oxides of nitrogen and
sulphur contaminate the atmosphere.
These sulphur and nitrogen oxides
react with oxygen and moisture in the
air to form dilute sulphuric and nitric
acides that eventually fall as rain.

Throughout North America, literally
thousands of tons of sulphur and nitro-
gen oxides, the raw ingredients of acid
rain, spew forth daily from a variety of

Challenge of acid rain

sources — from the furnaces of
coal-fired generating stations; from the
smokestacks of ore smelters, steel mills
and chemical factories; and from the
exhaust pipes of buses, cars and trucks.
In Canada, the mining industry’s
smelting sulphur-rich ores sends up the
heaviest clouds of sulphur dioxide. In
the United States, coal-fired generating
stations operated by power companies
are the major culprits. ‘
Once these contaminants are pro-
duced in the factory or in the smelter,
smokestacks projecting high into the
atmosphere distribute plumes of pollu-

phur and nitrogen oxides remain
suspended for an average of two to four
days during which the transformation
of these pollutants into acid rain takes
place.

In this period of time the pollutants
can be carried by prevailing winds
thousands of kilometres from their
sources. So sulphur dioxide originating
in the Ohio River Valley may ultimately
find its resting place in the Adirondak
Lakes of New York or the Muskoka
region of Ontario.

Much of it apparently has. From the
LaCloche Mountains and Killarney
Provincial Park across northcentral On-

tario to Algonquin Park, 155 lakes have

Greenpeace

continued from page S3

that is undertaken nationally has to go
through a clearing process. As a result
we tend to look at issues in a global
context more than other groups do.

Then there is Greenpeace’s tradi-
tional focus on direct action tactics.
They’re often considered confronta-
tional by governments and cor-
porations that are the target of our ac-
tions. So that makes us a little bit dif-
ferent too, in the sense that often we are
the first to identify a problem, and bring
it to public attention through dramatic
tactics. i

For instance, among the peace ac
tions we’ve been doing in Canada are
the waterborne actions against nu-
clear-powered and nuclear-armed war-
ships, where Greenpeace activists in
rubber dinghies go out to confront an
aircraft carrier or destroyer.

One of the tactics that we’ve de-
veloped is the anchor-drop, which
means floating our boats underneath
the anchor of a large ship such as an
aircraft carrier. This prevents it from
being able to drop anchor. It was a tac-
tic used in Vancecuver in 1981, and pre-
sumably we'll be using it again in our
Disarm the Seas campaign we’re about
to launch.

One of the reasons why we are going
after naval exercises is that we are vir-
tually the only peace organization that
owns ships. We are capable of shadow-
ing naval exercises and broadcasting by
satellite to the world the nature of these
exercises.

Trib: Greenpeace was also very much
involved in the protests here against
Cruise testing.

S: For the past three or four years
Greenpeace has been at Cold Lake.
This year we had three people on site,
on the range for about two days trying

to disrupt the test. We were successful

in disrupting its normal landing pattern.
The flights normally land on Primrose
Lake, and there have been only three
occasions when it hasn’t landed on the
lake: once when it crashed when it ran
out of fuel; once when its engines didn’t
start, and once when Greenpeace was
waiting for it. We will be continuing our
anti-Cruise campaign and we will be
back up at Cold Lake in 1988.

Trib: The Mulreagan summit is com-
ing up. If you were a third party in that
room, if you had two minutes to speak to
Reagan and Mulroney, what would you
tell them?

S; In particular, I would want to talk
to old Brian, and tell him that the way in
which he is going will put him down in
Canadian history as the great sell-out
artist, and perhaps even the Quisling of
Canada.

He is selling out the North, he is sell-
ing out Canadian interests, grasping for
this illusive free trade agreement. In the
name of free trade, he has given away
the store. He’ll have nothing left to
trade for by the time he’s finished.

Brian is selling out the North. There
are rumors of some sort of agreement
where the United States agrees to rec-
ognize that the Northwest Passage be-
longs to Canada as long as Canada rec-
ognizes the United States’ right to
“‘defend’’ it.

It seems to me that what we’re really
saying to the rest of the world is that we
own it, but to the United States that
they own it too. The Tories under Mul-
roney are continuing to allow the mili-
tarization of the North, and to allow
American forces into the North in such
a way that they have never been in-
volved in the past. This will entail the
periodic stationing of American fighter
planes at Canadian airfields. It will be
the first time that’s happened. I'll tell
Brian, and Reagan if his mental state’
enables him to listen, that we will not
accept this.

tion over a staggeringly large area. Sul-’

Both Canada, USA must act soon

become acidified and no longer support
any fish life. They are now as acidic as
the worst lakes in Norway and the
United States. Overall, it is estimated
that 2,000-4,000 lakes in Ontario alone
have already suffered the same fate. If
the present level of acid rain is main-
tained, tens of thousands of more
Canadian lakes could well follow.
Over 50 million metric tons of sul-
phur and nitrogen oxides rise up from
sources in the United States and
Canada every year. The acid rainclouds
that result do not respect international
boundaries. Consequently, the acid

4

Surface Wind Flow Across North America,
Based on July Resultant Surface Winds

AA
So] Aretic
Airstream

Tropical
Airstream

ledge acid rain as one of the most seri- |
ous environmental problems facing |

North America, their concrete action
on the issue is worth little more than the

$1 a year they pay Bill Davis as Cana- ;

da’s ‘‘acid rain commissioner.”
President Reagan, despite his prior

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Inco’ s Copper Cliff smelter complex accounts for
40 per cent of Ontario’s total: sulphur dioxide
emission. Ontario Hydro is responsible for one
quarter of the province’s emissions of nitrogen
oxides. Half of Canada’s acid rain problem is

inherited from the USA.

a

rain jeopardizing Canadian lakes can be
attributed to furnaces on both sides of
the border.

A 1979 report by the joint United.

States-Canada Research Consultation
Group suggested that Ontario inherits
50 per cent ofits acid rain problem from
the United States and the other half
from domestic sources.

In other words, alleviating acid rain
in Canada depends ultimately on both
the United States and Canada cutting
back their emissions.

Rainclouds massing on our southern
borders carry acid rain into Canada.
Most of these ‘“‘imported pollutants”’
come from central and eastern United
States, where coal mining and. elec-
tricity generating is concentrated. They
are transported by the predominant
weather system. In summer, strong
southerly winds blow more frequently,
bringing high concentrations of air
pollutants into Canada.

The United States produces more
than 24 million tons of sulphur dioxide
and 19 million tons of nitrogen oxides
annually. Sixty per cent of the sulphur
dioxidé is from coal-fired generating
stations. The highest density of these
emissions is in the upper Ohio Valley,
which includes eastern Ohio, northern
West Virginia, and western Pennsyl-
vania.

If North America, and especially
Canada, is to avoid irreversible damage
and enormous economic costs, new
solutions must be found to the acid rain
problem and two crucial steps taken in
some form or other:

1. emissions of sulphur and nitrogen
oxides must be substantially reduced at
their source as soon as possible. This
will require immediate action by the
federal and especially the provincial
governments to curb all provincial
emissions;

2. an air pollution agreement must
be negotiated between Canada and the
United States to control the trans-
boundary movement of air pollutants.

So far, on point 2, which comes up at
the Mulreagan summit, all we have are
words. While the federal government
and prime minister publicly acknow-

agreement to spend $5-billion on acid —
rain ‘“‘research’’, seems to be in no-
hurry to do even this — unless he can”
force concessions from the Canadian —
government on other issues. He has }
furthermore made it clear that his
government is unwilling to seriously

control U.S. acid rain polluters.

While Canada can and must put pres- |

sure on the United States government

to move it into action, even though 5

Reagan still contends that “‘ducks”’ and
‘‘hydrocarbons released by vege-
tation’”’ are responsible for acid rain —
Canadians can force their governments
at all levels to clean up domestic pollu-
ters now. What is needed is political
will expressed through political action.
A strong public push is required i
efforts to control acid rain are going tO

succeed. To stop acid rain, Canadians

have to express their concerns to and

put increasing pressure on both the .

politicians and the polluters.

THE “SPECIAL’
RELATIONSHIP a

$4 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, APRIL 8, 1987

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