The Adirondack Council

News Release

For more information contact: John F. Sheehan
518-432-1770 (office)
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Released, Wednesday, January 29, 2003

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The Adirondack Council, a leader in the fight against acid rain, called on Congress today to act on a new federal report showing that the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 made progress on acid rain, but that deeper cuts in air pollution are needed to prevent continued, widespread environmental damage.

The report, issued today by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Research and Development, shows that modest cuts in air pollution have produced corresponding modest-but-encouraging improvements in pollution concentrations in lake water across the Northeast, including the region’s hardest-hit area, the Adirondack Park. In some other areas, such as New England and Virginia, little or no improvement was measured, although the rate of damage appeared to have slowed.

"The good news is that we have been taking the right approach by reducing sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from power plants. Some of our lakes are getting better," said Adirondack Council Executive Director Brian L. Houseal. "The bad news is that those cuts need to be much deeper and faster in order to reverse decades of pollution damage. Congress must take action or our lakes, rivers and forests will never recover their vitality.

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"Our natural ecosystems are beginning to show signs of chemical recovery. In short, they are less poisonous to their wildlife than they were a few years ago," Houseal explained. "But it’s a long road from the start of chemical recovery to full biological recovery -- the point where you see the fish, trees and other native species coming back in healthy numbers. But all long journeys require a first step."

Houseal noted that there were several bills under consideration by Congress designed to stop acid rain. The two leading plans would require deeper cuts than the Acid Deposition Control Act, authored by Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-NY, and sponsored last year by Sens. Charles Schumer, D-NY, and Hillary Clinton, D-NY. The bill was designed to end the damage from acid rain, with additional cuts of 50 percent in sulfur dioxide and 70 percent in nitrogen oxides, nationwide.

"President Bush told Congress in his State of the Union address last night (Tuesday) that he wanted it to pass his Clear Skies Act," Houseal said. "His plan calls for even deeper cuts in emissions from power plants than the pace-setting Moynihan bill.

"Adirondack Congressmen John Sweeney, R-Clifton Park, and John McHugh, R-Watertown, introduced a bill earlier this month known as the Acid Rain Control Act. It would produce cuts identical to the President’s bill, but would achieve them in less time," he said.

The Moynihan bill was long considered the minimum necessary to address the acid rain problem. This year, the President surpassed it and the Sweeney/McHugh team went even further. We are confident a solution is within Congress’s reach. The time to act is now."

New York’s 6-million-acre Adirondack Park is suffering the worst acid rain damage in the United States. More than 500 of the Park’s 2,800 lakes and ponds are already too acidic to support their native life. Red spruce and fir forests on the Park’s mountain peaks are dying at an alarming rate. Mercury now contaminates the fish in more than 20 Adirondack lakes and all four Catskill Mountain reservoirs that provide 90 percent of New York City’s drinking water.

For More Information on Acid Rain, View the Adirondack Council's Publication Acid Rain: a Continuing National Tragedy

Acid rain is also causing similar damage in mountain areas from Maine to Georgia, as well as the Colorado Rockies and most of the mountain ranges of California, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency. A long succession of federal reports on acid rain, conducted since 1990, confirm that more than half of the Adirondack Park’s lakes and ponds will be lost to acid rain if nothing more is done to control smokestack pollution.

Founded in 1975, the Adirondack Council has been working to halt acid rain since the late 1970s, when damage to high elevation forests and lakes was first discovered to be related to air pollution. The Council worked with several national and regional organizations to create New York’s ground breaking 1984 acid rain program as well as the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which created the current federal program.

The Adirondack Council is an 18,000-member, privately funded, not-for-profit organization dedicated to protecting and enhancing the natural character and human communities of the Adirondack Park through research, education, advocacy and legal action.