Lessons Learned From the Acid Deposition Research Experience: An Historical Perspective

I began a fifteen-year career as a federal science program manager in the middle of the 1980s, when I took a position in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Office of Research and Development on the Acid Deposition Research Staff. EPA was emerging from an unprecedented trough in public perception and official performance. William Ruckelshaus had returned as Administrator, in part to repair the damage done by the previous Administrator, and among the many vexing environmental issues that needed to be addressed, the challenge of acid deposition was among the greatest. In this chapter, I reflect not so much on the science of acid deposition per se, but on my personal experiences as a participant in an important federal science and assessment program on a very visible public environmental issue, and what lessons can be drawn from them.