Initial Detection of Acid Lakes in Washington State
Welch EB and Chamberlain WH. 1981. Initial Detection of Acid Lakes in Washington State. University of Washington. Seattle, WA
Acid rain exists in the Pacific Northwest. While most of the attention has been focused on Eastern United States and Canada and Scandinavia ..., the occurrence of substantial acidity in Northwest rainfall has also been recognized. Rainfall pH monitored at the University of Washington has ranges from 4.2 to 5.2 for 70 percent of the time and between 3.9 and 4.2 for 5 percent of the time. The minimum pH recorded was 3.8. Powers and Rambo (personal communication) have compiled data on precipitation pH for the Pacific Northwest and found that for seven sets of data the range was well below the normal pH of rain water in equilibrium with atmospheric CO2 (5.6). ... The purpose of this study was to determine if acid rain, which was know to exist, is having any detectable effect on natural lake acidity. That is, does Washington, in particular its Naitonal Parks, have man-caused acid lakes. Many of the mountain lakes have rather lower buffering resistance to precipitation of increased acidity. If located in relatively small basins composed of granitic material with little soil development and few trees then buggering resistance of the basin is also low. Such lakes would therefore be highly sensitive to acid rain.
- Type
- Unpublished Report
- Authors
- Welch, Eugene; Chamberlain, William
- Date of Issue
- 1981-01
- Publisher
- University of Washington
- Units
- MORA , OLYM
- Keywords
- Acid Rain, high elevation lakes, Water Chemistry
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Human Use | Non-point Source Human Effects | Non-point Source Human Effects