Wednesday, Apr. 09, 2003

A Light In The Black Triangle

By MARYANN BIRD

Like the classical composers he loves, Josef Krecek is a master of instrumentation. But rather than orchestrating strings, brass and woodwinds, he brings together rain and fog gauges, pH meters, fish counters and other environmental-monitoring devices. And instead of sublime symphonies, the 53-year-old Czech hydrologist's instruments have produced disturbing evidence of disharmony — the vast devastation wrought by Soviet-era industrial air pollution, acid-rain deposits and poor commercial forestry practices in the Jizera Mountains of northern Bohemia. The range , which runs along the Czech Republic's border with Poland, forms part of the infamous Black Triangle, a 32,000-sq-km area where the two countries and the former East Germany meet. "The whole area was a graveyard for trees," says Krecek. "It was the epicenter of sulfate pollution in the world."

When Krecek, now an associate professor at Czech Technical University, went to work for the Prague-based Forest Research Institute in the 1970s, decades of intense strip-mining and sulfate-spewing, lignite-fired power plants were killing woods, lakes and streams. In the early 1980s, he was the first to prove the link between industrial pollution and the dying forests and watersheds. The heavy pollution — which peaked in 1987 — fell to earth as acid rain, damaging foliage, stripping soil of key nutrients and releasing toxic metals that stunted root growth and poisoned aquatic life in streams and reservoirs. The communist authorities blocked publication of Krecek's findings, his professional advancement, and his travel to the West. But he got the grim news out.

Krecek managed to release bits and pieces of his work in local science journals, and to meet with East bloc colleagues. In 1984, he organized the first "international" conference on the Black Triangle, attended by one delegate from Poland and one from East Germany. He continued to gather critical data for the day the authorities would listen. When communist rule ended in 1989, the acidic streams had not seen a fish for about 40 years. But Krecek's findings — which now go back 22 years — have given post-cold war governments solid scientific evidence linking pollution to the deaths of trees and fish in the Black Triangle, as well as reference points against which watershed renewal can be measured.

Now the ecosystem is recovering, due to a decline in mining and heavy industry. But Krecek is still on the case — documenting water-quality improvements that allowed the reintroduction of brook trout; promoting the planting of beech and mountain ash instead of the faster-growing but more pollution-retaining Norway spruce. And he is not just a monitor. The return of the fish was largely his project, and he continues to champion sustainable tree-farming methods. "The research has helped us understand the workings of the ecosystem and how man should treat it," says the modest scientist. When the mountains are covered in snow, Krecek straps on cross-country skis and a 20-kg pack, gliding across 10 km of rugged terrain to monitor the health of the watershed. His fight is not yet won. But in the Black Triangle, Krecek has turned on a light.