There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in

https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/26/us/broad-damage-found-in-trees-in-eastern-us.html

There is no consensus on what role, if any, is played by acid rain in damaging or slowing the growth of the forests. Acid rain occurs when air pollutants, chiefly sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, change chemically in the atmosphere and fall to earth as acidic rain, snow, fog or dry particles.

The corrected sentence must make clear that both damaging and slowing the growth of refer to forests. E is the only choice that does so without introducing errors. In choice A, of is required after growth. In choices B and C, the use of the damage instead of damaging produces awkward and wordy constructions, and without to after damage, B is grammatically incomplete. In C, the slowness of does not convey the original sense that the rate of growth has been slowed by acid rain. Choice D also changes the meaning of the sentence by making both damaged and slowed refer to growth.