The article on biological alternatives to clean up a lake was very interesting. It illustrates a belief I hold: that nature can be helped to fix itself, rather than destroying it even more with machinery or chemicals.

This is an important issue. In an age when many have recognized the mistakes made by industry in scarring the environment, solutions to the problems of regenerating the environment are being sought.

The article speaks of possible side-effects caused by the introduction of genetically altered plants. While the public may have a problem with that risk, which is real, Onondaga Lake is so polluted it would be more dangerous to the environment than these plants.

In Europe, lake pollution is a devastating problem. Acid rain from industrialized parts of Western Europe has rendered a huge number of lakes in Eastern Europe and Scandinavia lifeless. Lovers of the outdoors now travel to Ireland, my native country and Scotland to experience the beauty of clean lakes. However, even these lakes are being affected by fertilizers and silage effluent which accumulate causing an over-abundance of nitrates. This is causing algae to flourish uncontrollably and choke lakes of oxygen. I have seen myself how this problem has increased in magnitude in a matter of a few years.

If these biological alternatives are developed, different "clean-up plants" may be engineered to combat problems in different lakes around the world. This would be easier, better and cleaner than mechanical or chemical alternatives. -