ADIRONDACK COUNCIL
CALLS ON NYS CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION
TO RESTORE FUNDING FOR CRUCIAL ACID RAIN MONITORING
Latest Version of Federal Budget Slashes Air Pollution Monitoring
Sites
For more information:
John F. Sheehan
518-432-1770 (ofc)
518-441-1340 (cell)
518-456-4512 (home)
Released: Monday, June 4, 2007
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The largest
environmental organization in the Adirondack Park today called
on the New York Congressional delegation to restore funds for
crucial air pollution monitoring stations, which were eliminated
from the Bush Administration's 2008 budget proposal.
"These research stations provide the only reliable information
on the effectiveness of the nation's air pollution controls,"
said Adirondack Council Executive Director Brian L. Houseal.
"Closing down, even for a few months, will wipe out 21 years
of continuously collected scientific data. The newly adopted
Clean Air Interstate Rule requires deep cuts in the air pollution
that causes acid rain. The next big round of pollution cuts at
the nation's electric power plants is required by 2010, with
another due in 2015. If these research stations are shut down,
we won't know what impact these cuts are having on the ground
and in our water.
"New Yorkers overcame tough resistance from the Midwest
in getting these monitoring stations created and funded,"
Houseal said. "These stations provided the scientific proof
we needed to persuade the federal government to regulate smokestack
pollution from power plants, through the Clean Air Act. In 1990,
they helped to persuade the first Bush Administration to create
the nation's acid rain control program. Most recently, they provided
the data needed to persuade the second Bush Administration to
impose the Clean Air Interstate Rule. Now, we need them to make
sure those required pollution cuts are being made."
The Adirondack Council has been a national leader in the fight
against acid rain since shortly after the organization was founded
in 1975.
In 1996, the US Environmental Protection Agency closed several
acid rain research stations in response to Clinton Administration
budget cuts. At the time, the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan
stormed on to the floor of the US Senate, and gave an impromptu
speech in which he called EPA's decision "insolent, arrogant
and stupid." He and Sen. Alfonse D'Amato demanded that the
funding be restored. It was.
The New York delegation rallied again in 2000, when budget cuts
threatened to shut down cloud-water monitoring programs. Again,
the funding was quickly restored.
"We really need another effort like those two," said
Houseal. "We need help right away from our Senators and
Congressional representatives. One of the programs that would
lose its funding is the Adirondack Lakes Survey Corp., which
has been the backbone of the acid rain research effort in the
Park. We gave them our Conservationist of the Year Award in 2006."
Houseal said that the Clean Air Interstate Rule has the potential
to end the damage caused by acid rain in the Adirondack Park
and, over time, should accelerate the Park's overall recovery,
he explained. Without hard data, policy makers will only be guessing
as to whether those goals have been reached, he said.
New York's 9,400-square-mile Adirondack Park is the hardest hit
place in the nation when it comes to acid. More than 500 lakes
and ponds have been "critically acidified," meaning
they are no longer capable of supporting their native life. High-elevation
red spruce and balsam fir forests have been decimated. Maples
and other hardwoods are losing their ability to reproduce. Untold
numbers of native trout fisheries have disappeared. Mercury contamination
has grown so widespread that children and women of child-bearing
age have been advised to avoid eating any of the Park's largest
predator fish (bass, pike, pickerel, walleye and yellow perch).
The Adirondack Park is the largest American park outside of Alaska.
It is the largest and wildest portion of the Adirondack/Champlain
World Biosphere Reserve. It contains 90 percent of all wilderness
(roadless forest) from Maine to Georgia (1.2 million acres),
as well as more than 200,000 acres of old growth (never cut)
forest. It is the world's largest intact deciduous forest ecosystem.
The Adirondack Park contains 2,800 lakes and ponds, which feed
more than 1,000 miles of navigable rivers and an estimated 30,000
miles of brooks and streams.
The Clean Air Interstate Rule was imposed by the US Environmental
Protection Agency in 2005. It requires cuts of roughly 70 percent
in sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plants in the
26 states from Texas to the East Coast. The cuts are phased in,
with the first deadlines and 2010 and the final deadlines in
2015.
Click here
to see the Fact Sheet on Budget Cuts for Details
The Adirondack Council's mission
is to ensure the ecological integrity and wild character of the
Adirondack Park. The Adirondack Council is a privately funded
not-for-profit organization with 18,000 members, hailing from
all 50 United States and four continents. The Council carries
out its missions through research, education, advocacy and legal
action.
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