This column is a continuation of one published a fortnight ago about Earthday-2002 and environmental backsliding since the first Earthday 32 years ago. On April 22, Earthday-2002, President Bush visited New York's still-beautiful but fast-deteriorating Adirondack Mountains to make a speech about his Clear Skies program which may clean up acid rain's harmful effects on forests, rivers, lakes and wildlife. Many other officials were there also to show their concern for the environment.

We know that very little enforcing of existing regulations or promulgating of new, more effective ones has occurred to date. Moreover, few details have been released about Clear Skies and how it might work to strengthen the weak Clean Air Act, which is easily circumvented by some of the worst air-polluters in the country. However, we do know that Mr. Bush's own Environmental Protection Agency initially rejected the Clear Skies Program in favor of another more effective one.

It's ironic that the Adirondacks were chosen by top officials to celebrate Earthday-2002 and to talk about saving wildlife, habitats and other environmental issues inasmuch as these historic mountains' forests, soils streams and lakes are being badly deteriorated by acid rains emanating from gigantic midwestern smokestacks of large, coal-burning power plants and industrial facilities.

Sulfur oxide emissions are converted to acids by combining with atmospheric moisture which fall back to earth as harmful acid rain and snowflake melt. These dissolve small but essential amounts of aluminum and other metals from Adirondack soils; leaving them deficient for healthy growth of forest plants. Aluminum, the third most common element in the earth's crust (oxygen and silicon are first and second) is removed from Adirondack soils and concentrated in local streams and lakes where the excessive acidity and metals kill trout and other gamefish - important tourist attractions for this impoverished area.

Interestingly, only the crystalline igneous and metamorphic Adirondack rock terrain north of New York's Mohawk River (and in New England) is affected thusly by acid rain; the limestone sedimentary rock terrain south of the Mohawk River buffers acid rain and limits its impact to increasing the natural rain and snowmelt effects in eroding valleys and caves.

What should be done at the federal level if the deleterious effects of acid rain are to be reversed? The old Clean Air Act must be changed to compel midwestern air polluters to end their presently allowed dilatory tactics of declaring major plant improvements or renovations to be routine maintenance (or minor overhauls) and thereby avoiding having to install costly but essential air pollution control equipment. In addition, all new power plants and factories must meet stricter air quality standards that will reduce acid rain, smog and haze (dangerous for moving vehicles), improve our health and stretch out our longevity - free from debilitating pain and discomfort that illness and accidents usually bring.

Also, we've been lax in developing alternative energy source and in cutting back our growing reliance on fossil fuels for which we perforce depend on OPEC nations, which can dominate our foreign policy by threatening to curtail oil supplies. American carmakers must be compelled to produce more lower fuel-consumption vehicles such as Toyota's Prius, and Congress should stop feeding at the pork barrel by adding spurious riders onto environmental legislation that would pay large corporate "farmers" to grow corn to produce high cost methanol as an inefficient phony substitute for petroleum derived gasoline.