Is there a "forest filter effect" for airborne organic pollutants? A SERRA journal forum

Almost a year ago, George Christakos, editor of the SERRA journal asked usindividually as members of the editorial advisory board to organize for thejournal a forum on a topic of current interest, involving some controversy, and ofinterest to the journal subscribers. In May 2002 both us found ourselves atconference in Vienna, Austria and in session with a rather lively discussion onthe issue of whether forests can filter pollutants out of the atmosphere. Shortlyafter that we recognized that this would be a good topic for a SERRA forum andagreed to jointly organize this effort. Thus, we selected as topic for our forum therole of vegetation in controlling the transport, mobility, persistence, and partitioningof organic chemicals (not metals) in regional and global environments.In October 2002 we sent an e-mail to several of our colleagues posing two questions