In Killarney Provincial Park, Canada, a group of children kayaked on a quiet but unnatural green lake. It was a sunny, hot day, and a thirsty boy was ladling water from an aluminum pot, perfectly filling his companion's kettle. A little careless, the pot slipped from the hands, into the depths of the water. Incredibly, it is still visible at the bottom of the lake, which is 50 feet (15.2 meters) deep.
It was the mid-1980s, and I was one of those kids. The water is clear for an unfortunate reason. The lake, near the town of Sudbury, Ontario, where nickel and copper are smelted, has been transformed by acid rain. Almost everything in the water disappeared, including tiny algae that normally block light from reaching the depths. The lake, and the whole area, became a beautiful but lifeless emerald.
Near 2019, Cyndy Desjardins, a biologist at the International Institute for Sustainable Development's Experimental Lakes Area in remote northwestern Ontario, was drinking breakfast coffee after a nighttime boat ride. She was smiling and tired. She spent most of last night working in the dark, looking for little monsters like Mysis relicta. Desjardins and her team are working to end acid rain experiments that began in the 1970s.
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