After Saving Castnet Program, Schumer Works To Save Two More Crucial Acid Rain Monitoring Programs That Could See Their 2008 Funding Slashed

Press Release

Like CASTNET, TIME AND LTM Programs are Vital to Providing Scientists and Policy-Makers with Important Data on Acid Rain in the Adirondacks

While Both Programs Received Funding for 2008, the Bush Administration Could Still Slash Funds in Final Budget, Cutting the Legs out From Under Two Programs Essential to the Livelihood of the Adirondacks

Schumer Calls on EPA to Fully Fund Both Programs for 2008

One week after U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer announced his successful efforts in rolling back potentially devastating cuts to a vital anti-acid rain monitoring program, Clean Air Status and Trends Network (CASTNET), the Senator turned his attention to saving two more programs that are essential to protecting the Adirondacks from acid rain. The two programs, the Temporally-Integrated Monitoring of Ecosystems (TIME) and the Long-Term Monitoring program (LTM), work in conjunction to provide scientists and policy-makers with important data on acid rain. However, the parent program that oversees the monitoring programs saws its overall funding reduced by $1.7 million from FY07 to FY08, endangering the two programs' funding.

Schumer today called on the EPA to fully fund the TIME and LTM programs so they can work with the CASTNET program to give scientists and environmentalists the tools they need to adequately stem the effects of acid rain. The Senator is eager to build off his recent success in saving CASTNET—a federal program that works to combat acid rain across the state and the country by establishing monitoring stations that provide scientists and legislators with detailed information regarding acid rain deposition.

"It's vital that we keep momentum on our side and save two programs that play a huge role in giving our scientists and environmentalists the knowledge they need to protect the Adirondacks from acid rain," said Senator Schumer. "We've already succeeded in saving one program, now it's time to turn our focus on the TIME and LTM programs - combined with CASTNET, these three programs will provide the tools needed to fight acid rain, which has already decimated too many of New York State's precious parks, lakes and rivers."

The TIME and LTM programs work together to collect data on the prevalence of acid rain throughout the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states by examining the acidity of lakes and streams. The two programs take different statistical approaches to monitoring, both of which are necessary to provide scientists and policy-makers with a thorough understanding of the effects of acid rain.

The LTM program makes frequent measurements, over many years, of the chemistry of a set of acid-sensitive lakes and streams, allowing scientists to evaluate trends in acidity in these sensitive areas.

The TIME program, by contrast, monitors a statistically chosen sample of lakes and streams once per year and allows scientists to determine what proportion of the lakes and streams in a region is affected. Together, the two methods provide a clear picture both of trends in acidity over time and also of its extent over the landscape at any given moment. Scientists and policy-makers need both types of information in order to solve the problem of acid rain.

These two important programs are funded from the Environmental Monitoring and Assessments Program (EMAP) account and have been historically funded at $800,000 for the two programs combined. Unfortunately, the entire account was reduced by $1.7 million from FY07 to FY08. Despite the overall cut, Schumer today sent a letter to the top administrator at the EPA, Stephen Johnson, calling on him to fully fund both the TIME and LTM programs.

Stressing the importance of the programs to the livelihood of the Adirondacks and Upstate New York, Schumer argued that because the programs' budgets are so small in the first place, even a relatively minimal cut could have a devastating impact on their crucial mission.

Last week, Senator Schumer announced that he was successful in saving the CASTNET program, which is designed to give scientists, legislators and environmentalists the data and information they need to better combat acid rain. The program operates 80 monitoring stations throughout the country, including New York State, and measures surface air quality. Within CASTNET, the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) partners with state and local governments to operate monitoring stations that measure the amount of "wet acid deposition" - acid rain. Together, these two programs provide invaluable information to scientists and legislators.

The program has historically been funded at approximately $3.9 million through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Science and Technology Account, in the Air Quality and Toxins program area. But for 2008, the EPA attempted to slash the program by $1 million in funding and said the money will come directly out of CASTNET's budget.

Schumer responded in October by blasting the proposal and sending a letter to the Senate Subcommittee on Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies, under the Senate Committee on Appropriations, calling on it to restore funding at the $3.9 million budget. Following Schumer's letter, full funding was included in the final Omnibus bill that passed Congress and was signed by the President.

Twenty years ago, acid rain was devastating the Eastern half of the United States. Congress, the EPA, state and local governments acknowledged the damage that unregulated emissions of certain acid-rain-producing pollutants were having on the environment. They took decisive action to curtail those emissions and today, acid rain is not as bad as it once was. However, in certain parts of the country acid rain continues to be a major ecological problem. The Northeast is the region most affected by this problem, with the Adirondacks in Upstate New York being brutally hit. TIME, LTM, CASTNET, and its subsidiary program NADP have all been integral to the EPA's response to acid rain.

Acid rain has been attributed to sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx), chemicals that can be transported in the wind, causing environmental and health problems hundreds of miles away. Fine particles can pose serious health risks, especially for people with heart or lung disease (including asthma) and older adults and children. Ground-level ozone can irritate the respiratory system, aggravate asthma, reduce lung capacity and increase people's susceptibility to respiratory illnesses like pneumonia and bronchitis.

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