Acid+Rainfall

Acid rain is when sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxides, two wide spread contaminants in the atmosphere, dissolve in the raindrops and make them acidic. These acidic raindrops then fall to the earth. Acid rain mostly comes from smoke stacks putting pollutants into the air as it goes over land, down rivers and through estuaries, but contamination of the water cycle also happens in the sky. The air that is around the earth contains many chemicals and tiny drifting particles that result from human activities like construction or oil being burned. These tiny particles called soot have to come down sooner or later.

Some things that cause toxic materials to rise into the air are when farmers or foresters spray their crops or trees to control insects, when they do this some of the toxic dust or spray is then carried upwards by the wind. When we burn wood, coal or oil to heat our homes, generate electricity or run factories many different toxic compounds come out of the chimneys with the smoke and drift off into the air polluting it. The millions of cars, trucks and buses on our highways produce exhaust gases that contain hydrocarbons, acid-producing sulfur, nitrous oxides, and heavy metals. Luckily we are trying to make great strides in helping these problems like car engines being modified to reduce the amounts of these materials that are released into the atmosphere. The worst air pollution is mostly found near large cities. Particularly large cities that have refineries, metal smelters, pulp mills and other polluting industries. Places that are away from big factories or cities can still receive pollutants. This is because the air is constantly moving because of wind so that when the particles get moved by the wind they get carried to other places too that can even be rural and produce little to no pollution. This is thought to be the cause of acid rainfall that is affecting rivers and lakes around the northern Gulf. Some of these major cities with industries are Chicago, Illinois, Detroit, Michigan, and Hamilton, Ontario.

//**Why?**//

- Pollution particles are in the air and when the rain falls it captures the pollutants and deposits them on land, in bodies of water, and in the ocean. The runoff from the land pollutes the streams, marshes and other waterways. This is agravating the problem. All living matter either on land or in the water is affected by drinking or absorbing the pollutants. This process has a negative affect not only on existing life but also on future life. For example the fish lay there eggs in the acidic water and they cannot hatch. The fish population then dramatically decreases creating a major gap in the chain. So the problem that we originally created has lead to a lot of problems that will take decades to undo if the problem is even solvable.

You cannot control pollution it lands in BASGO. A way to help is to make sure that the factories across the housing development are not contributing to the pollution by using alternative fuels. If the odor from the factories goes across the river not only are the people living in the houses not going to be happy and but its more pollution for other city’s and Basgo.
 * //How Can We Help?//**

-What people could do to prevent acid rain is have machinery that runs on vegetable oil rather than fossil fuels. Vegetable oil is better for the environment rather than fossil fuels because vegetable oil fuels are sustainable and vegetable oil fuels emit greenhouse gases when burned, but they are considered because any carbon dioxide emitted is absorbed by the plant during its growing process and counterbalances the emitted CO2. The facts in the sentence above are from this website http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/thebiggreenbus/WVO.html. So basically vegetable oil burns cleaner than fossil fuels. Some the machinery that you could run on vegetable oil is cars and lawn mowers. Or you could heat your home only in the winter and not in the summer. You could even be extremely conservative and get a fireplace and use that to heat your home and not a heater, and even though burning wood creates pollution it is better for the environment rather than burning oil.
 * //How We Can Help Stop This//**