Loch may hold key to acid rain’s mysteries

Press, 10 August 1985, Page 18

Loch may hold key to acid rain’s mysteries

Experiments that may offer a cheaper and more practical way of dealing with acid rain are about to get under way in the Galloway hills of Scotland. There is continuing pressure on the power industry to admit that emissions from power station chimneys are the main cause of acid rain, which is alleged to damage both forests and lake waters. There is also belief that new methods of controlling these emissions are the only remedy. Scientists, however, say the high cost and long timescale of such measures, plus the lack of guarantee that they will work, points to the need for an alternative answer.

One such alternative — the manipulation of soils and waters to counter acid rain — could prove to be quicker, cheaper, and much more practical than putting large amounts of money into new

methods of filtering out acid-form-ing gases such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power station discharges. The latter would also create a problem of what to do with the resulting large amounts of waste gases. In Britain, experts have found a perfect test site for the new idea of dealing with acid rain. It is a small loch measuring 600 by 400 metres in southwest Scotland where the waters have become too inhospitable for fish. Between 1935 and 1955 an average of 100 brown trout a year were caught by anglers in the waters of Loch Fleet, but since 1960 no fish have been caught there. Investigations have shown already that the area is more acidic than the rain falling on it, which indicates that the problem is more complex than simply rain transporting chimney gases back to the ground. In Sweden it has been found that an acceptable water quality can be

restored simply by treating lakes with limestone powder; but the inlet and outlet system at Loch Fleet means its water is changed every six months. Adding lime would prove a costly and continuing operation. Instead, the United Kingdom Central Electricity Generating Board, South of Scotland Electricity Board, North of Scotland Hydro Electric Board and the National Coal Board have joined forces in a £ 1 million five-year project that aims to produce new techniques of soil or drainage treatment as a possible alternative and longerlasting way of solving the acidity problem. At the same time, Dr Bob Bell from Liverpool University in northwest England is devising a series of treatments that may reverse the acidity in and around the loch. Application of these experimental treatments will form this year’s effort. — British News Review.