Using air pollution thresholds to protect and restore ecosystem health

Air pollution is changing our environment and undermining many benefits we rely on from wild lands, threatening water purity, food production, and climate stability, according to a team of scientists writing in the 14th edition of the Ecological Society of America's Issues in Ecology. In "Setting Limits: Using Air Pollution Thresholds to Protect and Restore U.S. Ecosystems," lead author Mark Fenn (USDA Forest Service) and nine colleagues review current pollution evaluation criteria. The authors propose science-based strategies to set new limits and put the brakes on acid rain, algal blooms, and accumulation of toxic mercury in plants and animals. Power plants, industrial processes, vehicles, farms and stockyards release mercury, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen compounds into the air. Though several decades of emissions limits and improving technology have resulted in a downward trend in acid rain and mercury contamination in the U.S., up to 65 percent of lakes in sensitive areas exceed critical acid levels, and mercury advisories against fish consumption exist in all fifty states. The authors discuss standard measurements that can be used to monitor ecosystem effects across the country. They review the use of defined "critical loads" of pollutants to design policy and manage ecosystems in the U.S. and Canada. Human health risks define current air quality standards. Ecosystem health has not been taken into account, and current standards do not provide good protections, according to the authors. The report calls for updating air quality standards and regulatory cost benefit analyses to account for impacts on ecosystems...more

This probably should have been titled "Using The Clean Air Act To Control Land Use".