Great Smoky National Park
has almost as much smog as L.A.
By the National Parks Conservation AssociationSept. 23, 2002
The Park
From the NPCA Web site
.. Established in 1930, Great Smoky Mountains National Park in North Carolina and Tennessee is one of the largest protected areas in the eastern United States, encompassing 800 square miles. This is America’s most visited national park, attracting more than 9 million visitors yearly. The park’s many guests come to see:
.. Rich forest diversity: There are more tree species in the Smokies (130) than in all of northern Europe. Every major forest type found in eastern North America is represented within the park, which is 95 percent forested.
.. Abundant wildlife: The park is home to 65 mammal species including black bears, river otters, bobcats and coyotes, and 230 bird species.
.. Southern Appalachian mountain culture: The park preserves a rich human history, including early settlers’ cabins, barns and churches.
.. The world’s best salamander habitat: Twenty-seven salamander species make the Great Smoky Mountains the “salamander capital of the world.” Especially notable are the Jordan’s salamander, a subspecies found nowhere else, and the 2˝-foot-long hellbender.
.. Scenic beauty: Sunset viewing is popular, as are spectacular views from places such as Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Smokies and the third-highest mountain in the East.
The Problems
.. Acid deposition: The Smokies suffer from some of the worst acid-deposition problems in North America. Clouds blanketing the sensitive spruce-fir forests found on Clingmans Dome, the highest peak in the Smokies, are often as acidic as vinegar. On average, rainfall in the park is 5 to 10 times more acidic than normal rainwater. The nitrates deposited at Great Smoky Mountains National Park are six to seven times the amount that local soils can naturally process, threatening sensitive plants and aquatic life.
.. Degraded scenic vistas: The spectacular overlooks for which this park is known are severely impaired by human-generated polluted haze. Under natural conditions, views extended for more than 100 miles. Because of air pollution, however, park visitors can expect to see only 25 miles on average. This drops to an average of approximately 14 miles during the summer months, making the Smokies one of America’s haziest parks.
.. Ozone pollution: Great Smoky has the highest ozone exposure at levels harmful to plants of any national park in America. Thirty plant species in the park show signs of damage from ozone pollution, including black cherry and yellow poplar. In addition, on more than 175 days since 1998 ozone levels at the park were hazardous to human health.
.. Mercury pollution: Scientists are concerned about possible levels of mercury deposition and recently began monitoring this toxic pollutant in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
WASHINGTON – A new report released today by three conservation groups shows that air in national parks is more polluted than that of many urban areas. The report, titled “Code Red: America’s Five Most Polluted Parks,” was produced by Appalachian Voices, the National Parks Conservation Association and Our Children’s Earth. It ranks the most polluted parks as follows: 1. Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee and North Carolina
2. Shenandoah National Park in Virginia
3. Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky
4. Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks in California
5. Acadia National Park in Maine
“In the Great Smoky Mountains, our most polluted national park, ozone pollution exceeds that of Atlanta and even rivals Los Angeles,” said Harvard Ayers, chairman of Appalachian Voices. The study uses an air-pollution index, developed by Appalachian Voices for two earlier studies, to rank the five most-polluted national parks based on haze, ozone and acid precipitation. The index compares data collected from 1991 through 2001 at 10 national parks with the most extensive monitoring programs. It assesses progress made during the decade since passage of 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act, the most recent changes to the law. “National parks have seen little to no improvement despite the most recent amendments to the Clean Air Act,” said Don Barger, NPCA’s Southeast regional director. “For example, pollution from outdated power plants continues to harm parks and people, when there’s no reason older power plants cannot meet modern pollution control requirements.” The impacts of air pollution are evident throughout the National Park System. For example, Yosemite in California ranked third in the analysis for ozone exposure, and Big Bend in Texas has some of the worst visibility in the West, and it is getting worse. “New statistics from the World Health Organization show that in the United States, air pollution annually kills nearly twice as many people as do traffic accidents and that deaths from air pollution equal deaths from breast cancer and prostate cancer combined,” said Tiffany Schauer, executive director of Our Children’s Earth Foundation. Most park air pollution from human sources comes from burning fossil fuels – coal, oil, and gas. Power plants and industrial facilities as well as cars, trucks, planes, trains and construction equipment produce fossil-fuel pollution. Although pollution from power plants varies by region, this one sector emits excessive amounts, especially in the eastern half of the country. Federal laws mandate that national parks should have the cleanest air in America, but this requirement remains unfulfilled. The Bush administration’s legislative and administrative proposals for changing air-protection laws and programs reduce progress toward this promise to parks, jeopardizing public health. Code Red offers recommendations critical to reversing park pollution, including: The Bush administration must implement and enforce existing programs of the Clean Air Act, such as the Regional Haze Rule, including the Best Available Retrofit Technology (BART) amendment and the New Source Review program. Federal legislation must be enacted to make timely, sizeable cuts in power-plant emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury and carbon dioxide. Emissions from mobile sources must be reduced, and vehicle efficiency must be increased. In the absence of strong federal action to reduce emissions, states must find ways to protect themselves, such as controlling in-state sources of pollution in order to ensure timely reductions. “Air pollution in the national parks is a national crisis that requires national solutions,” said Joy Oakes, director of NPCA’s Clean Air for Parks and People campaign. “A key part of the solution is for the Bush administration to enforce existing pollution laws. Unfortunately, the administration is abandoning programs essential to cleaning up the air in our parks and communities.”
The good, the bad, and the ugly: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, visual range of Cerlulean Knob at 155 miles, 31 miles, and 6 miles. (NPS photos)
National Park Service insists
By Duncan Mansfield
progress has been made elsewhere
Associated Press
Sept. 24, 2002
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Great Smoky Mountains is the nation’s most polluted national park, with air quality rivaling that of Los Angeles, environmental groups said in a survey released Monday. The survey was released the same day a National Park Service study found air quality has improved or at least stayed the same in more than half of 32 monitored parks since 1990. “In most parks, air quality exceeds standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency to protect public health and welfare,” Park Service Director Fran Mainella said in a statement. “Our findings also show that some parks occasionally experience pristine air quality conditions, unaffected by air pollution.” The National Parks Conservation Association said that wasn’t good enough. “Clean air in our parks shouldn’t be an occasion, it should be a condition,” said Don Barger, Southeast regional director. Using park service data, the association and two other environmental groups, Appalachian Voices and Our Children’s Earth, rated the Smokies as the most polluted park in the country. Shenandoah National Park in Virginia was second, followed by Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in California and Acadia National Park in Maine. The Smokies, on the Tennessee-North Carolina line, is the nation’s most popular park with more than 9 million visitors a year. Park spokesman Bob Miller noted that efforts by area utilities are being made to cut down on pollution. “But the fact remains our air quality has not gotten better,” Miller said. Ozone levels in the Smokies violated federal health standards more than 175 times since 1998, threatening the health of hikers and damaging 30 species of plants, the environmental groups said. The report used a plant ozone-exposure standard of 60 parts per billion for comparison purposes. Ozone exposure numbers were computed by adding the concentrations for all hours experiencing 60 parts per billion or greater for the months of April through October. According to the study, the Smokies’ average annual ozone exposure of 133,200 ppb-hours exceeded that found in Atlanta, Knoxville, Tenn., and Charlotte, N.C. Only one city in the study’s analysis, Los Angeles with more than 180,000 ppb-hours, exceeded the Smokies. The groups said the Smokies’ pollution threatened the health of hikers and 30 species of plants. They also said mountaintop clouds in the Smokies can be as acidic as vinegar and mountain views that should be 77 miles average 14 miles in the summer. The Park Service, meanwhile, said 22 of 28 parks monitored for visibility showed improvement over the decade, and 14 of 29 parks monitored for acid rain showed a decrease in both sulfate and nitrate levels during the period. As for ground-level ozone, a precursor to smog, improvement was measured in eight of 32 monitored parks and 16 others showed no further degradation.
To read the full report, check out the PDF version at
http://www.npca.org/across_the_nation/visitor_experience/code_red/codered.pdfor read it online at
http://www.npca.org/across_the_nation/visitor_experience/code_red/
