Clear View of a Wonder’s Future : Coalition offers a plan for better visibility at Grand Canyon

Might summer visitors to the Grand Canyon in the year 2037 enjoy a clearer view of the natural wonder than today’s tourists? Possibly, if a historic plan painstakingly put together by eight western states, Native American tribes and a broad coalition of environmentalists and businesses takes effect.

After five years of consensus building, the Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission has recommended a series of federal, state and local measures to diminish air pollution over the Grand Canyon and 15 other national parks and wilderness areas in the West. The plan, cautious in its ambitions, is intended to improve an average day’s visibility by 10% over the next four decades. Much of the foul air, no surprise, originates over Los Angeles.

Officials at the Environmental Protection Agency applauded the “sensible solutions to a problem that has meaning to all Americans.” The recommendations include low-emission vehicle standards, reductions in sulfur emissions from power plants and other industries, fewer controlled burns of brush and replacement of fossil fuels with renewable-energy sources. The commission, however, could not reach consensus on pollution controls for Southern California Edison’s coal-fired power plant in Laughlin, Nev., which is one of the largest single polluters upwind of the Grand Canyon. It recommended that the EPA and Edison separately work out a solution in the next two years.

The big challenge is whether advocates of the plan can hold together during implementation of the pollution controls, which the EPA must approve within 18 months. The commission’s recommendations are to be incorporated into a national program to protect federal parks and wilderness areas.

The commission’s hard-won compromises come in the face of the traditional struggles among environmental interests, business and government. The commitment of these factions to progress will be measured by their performance in the years ahead, and by how often a visitor will be able to stand on the south rim of the great canyon and see the other side.