Acid rain is a significant problem in our world today. It causes fish and plants to die in our waters as well causing harm to our own race because we eat these fish, drink this water and consume these plants. It is a problem that we must all face together and attempt to solve. However, acid rain on it's own is not the biggest problem. It causes many other problems such as aluminum poisoning. (Gay, Water Pollution)
             Acid rain can be defined as all the rain, snow, mist that falls from the sky in the form of precipitation onto our planet that contains an unnatural acidic content. It is not to be confused with uncontaminated rain that falls, for that rain is naturally slightly acidic. Acid rain is caused by today's industry. ( Compton Encyopedia) When products are manufactured, many chemicals are used to create it. Due to the difficulty and cost of properly disposing of these products they are often emitted into the atmosphere with little or no treatment.
             The term, acid rain, was first considered to be important about 20 years ago when scientists in Sweden and Norway first believed that acidic rain might be causing great ecological damage to the planet. ( Parfit, National Geographic) The problem was that by the time the scientist found the effects of acid rain a great deal of damage had already been done. Detecting an acid lake is often quite difficult. A lake does not become acidic overnight. It happens over a period of many years, sometimes decades. The changes are usually too gradual for them to be noticed very early. (Acid Rain and It's Effect on Wildlife, Wildlife Fact File)
             At the beginning of the 20th century, most rivers and lakes such as the Tovdal River in Norway had not yet begun to die. However, by 1926 local inspectors were noticing that many of the lakes were beginning to show signs of death. Fish were found dead along the banks of many rivers. As the winter's ice began to melt off, hundreds of dead fish ...