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Apr 28 2025
1A recently published study by researchers at the University at Albany has provided the first concrete evidence that surface waters in New York’s Adirondack Park have made a near-complete recovery from metal pollution. This environmental rebound follows more than 50 years of regulatory efforts initiated with the passage of the Clean Air Act.
Enacted in 1963 and strengthened through later amendments, the Clean Air Act was one of the first major federal measures aimed at curbing air pollution across the United States. The Adirondack region, long plagued by acid rain that severely harmed its lakes, forests, and wildlife, was a major focus of these pollution-control efforts.
The UAlbany research team, analyzing both historical records and newly retrieved sediment cores, documented more than a 90% reduction in metal contaminants—including lead, copper, and zinc—across four Adirondack ponds over the last half-century. Their findings were published in the journal Environmental Pollution.
Skylar Hooler, a doctoral student in UAlbany's Department of Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences and the study’s lead author, has a personal connection to the region. "The Adirondacks have been a special place to me since I moved here as a child," Hooler said. "Learning about the devastating effects of acid rain made me want to revisit the progress made since the Clean Air Act, especially because most previous studies were more than a decade old."
To carry out the study, Hooler collaborated with assistant professor Aubrey Hillman, an expert in using lake sediments to study environmental changes. Working through UAlbany’s Paleoclimate Lab at the ETEC research complex, the team used advanced equipment to collect and analyze sediment cores—long, layered samples extracted from lake beds that provide a historical record of environmental conditions stretching back thousands of years.
“Each layer of sediment represents a snapshot in time,” Hooler explained. "Preserving the original layering allows us to trace environmental changes, such as metal pollution levels, over centuries."
The selection of study sites was deliberate. Researchers prioritized lakes with similar hydrological characteristics and minimal modern human impact, ensuring better comparisons of metal pollution trends. Some sites had histories of logging or fire, while others remained largely undisturbed, allowing the team to assess how land-use history influenced both contamination levels and recovery rates.
While the Clean Air Act was instrumental in cutting emissions, Hooler emphasized that local watershed dynamics also played an essential role. "Many lakes show peak metal deposition between 1970 and 1990, coinciding with the phased rollout of Clean Air Act regulations," she noted. "However, factors like proximity to pollution sources and wind patterns also influenced recovery."
Though the metal pollution study is nearly complete, Hooler’s research in the Adirondacks is far from over. She is now investigating newer forms of pollution, such as microplastics, and leading a broader project focused on ecological regime shifts—abrupt, lasting changes in ecosystem structure caused by human pressures like pollution, climate change, and overfishing.
"This new research looks at trends in productivity, nutrient cycles, and food webs," Hooler said. "Unfortunately, early results suggest that human impacts on these ecosystems may be more persistent and concerning than the story told by metal pollution alone."
Contributing researchers on the project included Sumar Hart, a graduate researcher at UAlbany, and William Kenney from the University of Florida’s Land Use and Environmental Change Institute.
Source:https://phys.org/news/2025-04-metal-pollution-adirondack-decades-air.html
This is non-financial/medical advice and made using AI so could be wrong.
