Modeling the neutralizing processes of acid precipitation in soils and glacial sediments of northern Ohio

Abstract

Most studies of the acidic deposition phenomena have been focused on processes occurring in the northeastern USA and Scandinavia. In these regions the soil cover is thin, the bedrock is acidic, and the terrain has very poor acid buffering capacity. Most of the US Midwest, including northern Ohio, has been ignored because the terrain is covered by glacial sediments with an abundance of carbonate minerals. Yet, for the last three decades the area has been experiencing acidic precipitation with a pH range of 3.5–4.5. the lowest in the USA. Samples of precipitation, soil water, and shallow ground water from Leroy Township in Lake County, Ohio, and from Wooster Township in Wayne County, Ohio, were analyzed and processed using WATEQ3 and PHREEQE computer models to quantify the effects of the acidic deposition. The two regions are characterized by very similar topographic, geological and hydrogeological conditions. Although the cation content of the precipitation in both regions is similar, the anion concentrations are much higher (sulfate by 70%, nitrate by 14% and chloride by 167%) in Leroy, located 50 km east-northeast and downwind of the Cleveland-Akron industrial complex, than in Wooster, located 80 km south-southwest and off-wind from the industrial complex. Computer modeling results indicate that buffering of acidic deposition in the surficial sediments and glacial tills of the two regions is dominated apparently by calcite dissolution, and dissolution and exchange of hydrogen for magnesium ions are the dominant neutralizing processes. However, reaction simulations also suggest that the buffering capacity of the Leroy soils and tills has been depleted to a much greater degree than in Wooster Township. In Leroy more acidic input is reacting with less buffering material to produce lower soil and groundwater pH. The depletion of carbonate and alumino-silicate minerals in the soils of Leroy Township is occurring at a rate that is 3–5 times faster than in the same type of soils in Wooster Township.