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home > radio > maine news > news story Maine NewsStudy Finds Widespread Ecosystem Damage
Air pollution is causing widespread ecosystem damage in the eastern US. That's the conclusion of a new study released this week by the Nature Conservancy and the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, based in Massachusetts. The report titled "Threats from Above" found that pollutants carried through the air, such as mercury, nitrogen, sulfur and ozone are harming the health of forests, waterways and wildlife populations. Among the contributors to the report is David Evers, who heads the Biodiversity Institute in Gorham. While scientists have documented the effects of air pollution on people, Evers says this is the first time researchers have assessed the conservation impacts. David Evers: This problem is bigger than what we thought. We find that the more we look, the more we find the larger the problem is - the magnitude of the problem - the fish and wildlife that live in these ecosystems are impacted more so than what we had thought. There's other food chains that are impacted. We're just starting to find out that insects, and the food webs that they're in, and birds and bats that eat those insects have just as much of a risk to mercury as the fish and the animals and people that eat the fish. Barbara Cariddi: So what effects have you seen in Maine? DE: Well, it's well known that we're at the tailpipe of the country. It is a very true fact that we're impacted more, maybe than other states even though we don't generate a lot of that pollution. I think it's also important to realize that we've identified hot spots for mercury. So there's certain areas in the state of Maine that are more at risk to mercury deposition than others, and that mercury gets up into the food chain. Again, we're more at risk for the fish that we eat. The birds are more at risk if they're eating the fish, like loons. We're just finding out that there's a whole list of other species like song birds and bats and little rails (????) that are also impacted. So I think in Maine, we need to still be diligent on reducing our own waste and polluting the environment, but we also need to look elsewhere to the west of us and hopefully convince others to do the same. BC: I'm wondering if what you're looking at is accumulation of this kind of pollution over years and years and years...is that what you're documenting? DE: I think it's important to realize the pollution has been going on for decades. Again, with the thought of mercury, what we put in the environment 30, 40, 50 years ago is still there. Nature's done a great job in cleaning itself and it still needs some time. I think we're fairly diligent in Maine and in New England in removing a lot of that mercury from the environment. That has helped. We've seen declines in mercury in the sediment and water and birds like loons and fish that we eat. So we're seeing improvements. The but is that there's other contaminants that we need to be concerned about. What the impact is of their interactions such as sulfur and mercury. There's a very good interaction. Sulfur acidifies the environment. The bacteria that methalate the mercury molecules coming from the sky do better in more acidified environments. So the more acid rain we get, eventually, the more methylmercury we get in the food chain. BC: Does this study suggest that these effects will show up in the future? That perhaps at some point we'll notice our forests are not growing as vigorously, or, you know, our fish populations are disappearing and that sort of thing? DE: I think that's a possibility, and I hate to get to that point where we noticeably see differences when we're out fishing, and we're out looking at birds, when we're enjoying Maine's nature. I would like to avoid that place and be proactive and progressive and do things now that avoid those sort of end points. BC: We have had loss on the books: the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, those kinds of things for decades now. Does this study suggest that we should perhaps ramp up that approach? Or do we need a whole different approach? DE: I think there's other people that could answer that question maybe a bit better than I can. I think there are improvements that we can make. We have mad strides with mercury - tremendous strides - but like I said, the more we look - still right now - the more problems we find with mercury in wildlife. We're still not there obviously. There's a lag time in nature in trying to heal itself, and in the case of sulfur it depleted a lot of the calcium that's in the soils. That calcium is very low now. If you're a little bird and you need calcium for your eggs and for the growth of your chicks, it's hard now to find enough calcium to do that. Just shows that we need to, as individuals, be involved with policy making, with our own decision making individually in how that can impact the rest of the country and, soon, the rest of the world. The world is a very small place, and I think the problems with air pollution cross borders. They can cross oceans. Whatever happens in other countries, in other continents, can have, eventually, impacts on us as well. BC: David Evers, thank you very much. DE: You're welcome. David Evers is executive director of the Biodiversity Institute in Gorham and a contributor to the new study, titled "Threats from Above." To view this report go to: www.ecostudies.org/Threats_from_Above.pdf
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