THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 20, 1996 TAG: 9603200003
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A14 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: By W. MICHAEL McCABE
LENGTH: Medium: 72 lines
The great philosopher Chicken Little's profound statement, ``The sky is falling! The sky is falling!'' appears to ring with some truth. In a technical sense, however, the sky is not falling, but pollutants traveling through the air are falling Earthward all along the East Coast of the United States.
The concept of airborne pollutants is not new to most Americans - we are familiar with the stories of acid rain turning pristine lakes in northern New England into sterile, lifeless pools. Now, scientists who study the Chesapeake Bay have new information that points to similar problems much closer to home.
Bays and estuaries along the East Coast are receiving considerable loads of nitrogen deposited from the air. Certain bodies of water, such as the Chesapeake Bay, have been plagued over the past few decades with an overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus - both are nutrients - which cause a chain reaction in the marine environment, leading to murkier water and fewer fish, shellfish, waterfowl and other living resources.
The prevailing winds of the United States bring airborne pollutants from the Midwest to the East Coast. Nitrogen oxide from coal-burning power plants and factories as far away as Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana and Toronto flow eastward and are deposited by rain and snow, not only in the waters of the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Bay, but also as far as Massachusetts Bay and Casco Bay in Maine. Although nitrogen oxide emitted from automobiles does not travel quite as far, the tens of millions of vehicles in the region contribute to the nitrogen loadings deposited on our bays and estuaries through the air.
Just last month this issue came to the attention of the top environmental officials from the Northeast and mid-Atlantic states, Maine to Virginia. These officials, along with their state air-pollution-control officials, comprise the Ozone Transport Commission, which looks at air-pollution issues throughout the region. The OTC heard from a national expert on water-quality modeling from Manhattan College. Dr. Robert Thomann was able to make a definite link between reducing nitrogen deposited by air and improvements to water quality in the Chesapeake.
Although Dr. Thomann used the extensive data related to Chesapeake Bay as his case study, he also pointed to other waterways that have the same problem. Approximately 30 percent of the nitrogen entering Chesapeake Bay is due to atmospheric deposition, but Massachusetts Bay is also faced with 25 percent of its nitrogen load coming from the air, Long Island Sound with nearly 25 percent, and Delaware Bay with 17 percent.
What does this mean? First, there will be additional benefits that many of us have not seen before as we clean up our air. We will not only be reducing the health risks to people who breathe our air, but the benefits will also accrue for our bays, estuaries and coastal waters.
As an example, implementation of the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 will prevent 14 million pounds of nitrogen from entering the Chesapeake Bay over the next few years. With the involvement and support of the Ozone Transport Commission on this issue, an additional 24 million pounds of nitrogen can be stopped from entering the Bay. These two actions will prevent 38 million pounds of nitrogen from raining down and polluting our nation's most productive estuary; that is a lot of pollution by anyone's standard.
As science advances and environmental-restoration efforts mature, we are realizing that there are often no simple solutions or answers. Our actions - whether putting fertilizer on our lawn, driving our car or building a coal-fired power plant - have many consequences, and many of those are unforeseen.
Who would have thought years ago, that nitrogen from a power plant in Kentucky might choke an oyster in the Chesapeake Bay? By the same token, who would have thought that by enforcing the Clean Air Act, the residents of the Bay region and the creatures in the Bay itself might breathe a little easier? MEMO: Mr. McCabe is regional administrator of the Environmental Protection
Agency. by CNB