Air Quality Problems Raising Concern in Great Smoky Mountains Park

“How’s the air quality today?”

The question beckons from a new kiosk at the Sugarlands Visitors Center in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the main entrance to the most visited national park in the country.

Monitors provide the instant answer with a real-time view of the Smokies’ tallest peaks from a vantage atop the 2,600-foot Look Rock monitoring station, along with the current ozone concentration and other weather information.

Comparison scenes show the same vista on good days, when visibility stretches to nearly 100 miles, and the smog-filled bad ones, when there is no view at all.

The latter view is becoming increasingly common.

“It’s not getting any better from the standpoint of visibility,” Smokies Supt. Karen Wade said. “And I think the trends are not very encouraging.”

While the Clean Air Act has produced significant reductions in air pollution in many parts of the country, there are indications that conditions are getting worse for the Smokies, a half-million-acre park on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, and the rest of the southern Appalachians.

Scientists say naturally light winds predispose the region to some of the most frequent and lengthy periods of air stagnation in North America.

“We are in a hot spot,” said Jim Renfro, air quality specialist for the park. “We are downwind from a lot of [pollution] sources and a lot of [regional] growth.”

One recent study found that, while sulfur dioxide emissions primarily from burning fossil fuels have declined nationally, the Smokies suffered a 21% increase between 1985 and 1994.

Coal-fired power plants as far away as the Mississippi River and Ohio Valley blow into the Smokies and linger, causing haze and acid rain.

So do pollutants from trucks and cars, including those of the 10 million visitors to the park annually, leading to the formation of colorless ozone that can make breathing difficult, particularly on mountain trails.

Last summer, the Smokies for the first time began issuing public health warnings when eight-hour ozone concentrations exceeded federal and state health standards.

Unhealthy ozone levels were marked a record 44 times last year, twice as many as the year before. The park recorded its highest eight-hour concentration last Aug. 25--123 parts per billion, 50% above healthy standards.

Ozone levels have been slightly worse this summer. As of Aug. 5, there have been 18 days when ozone has exceeded health standards; by this time last year, there had been two fewer.

But on a recent sunny morning, the Sugarlands Visitors Center bustled with hikers and sightseers who barely noticed the air-quality kiosk as they rushed around for souvenirs and directions.

“Is there a problem? I didn’t know,” said Delbert Hacker, 65, of Vincennes, Ind., as he paused to look at the graphics and the Look Rock monitor on the kiosk.

Ranger Pam Rodgers, who staffs an information desk near the kiosk, said people want to talk about it after coming down from Clingmans Dome, the Smokies’ tallest summit.

First they ask what’s happened to the fir trees, which are being destroyed by a nonnative insect. Then they ask what happened to the view, she said.

The park and environmental groups have undertaken a subtle-though-ubiquitous campaign to tell visitors that air quality in the mountains sometimes is no better than in the cities they left behind.

“We have been doing monitoring since the mid-’80s,” Smokies spokesman Bob Miller said. “But it took us awhile to feel comfortable enough with our science so that we could say for sure that there was damage occurring to park species because of air quality.”

Experiments in the Smokies have established that at least 30 species of plants in the park are dying or have been damaged because of ozone and acid rain.

Getting the word out is taking several forms:

* More air-quality kiosks will be installed at other Smokies visitors’ centers. The information also is available on the Internet at www.nature.nps.gov/ard/parks/grsm/lookRockWeather.

* The newsletter Smokies Guide: The Official Newspaper of Great Smokies Mountain National Park regularly contains articles on pollutants. In the latest issue a story headlined “Air Pollution Is Ruining Our Views” said summertime vistas have been reduced by 80%.

* The National Parks and Conservation Assn. has targeted the Smokies as one of the country’s most endangered parks. Its volunteers are handing out postcards that visitors can send to congressmen urging tougher emission standards for old coal-fired power plants.

* A new film for the visitors’ centers, produced by the Friends of the Great Smoky Mountains, talks for the first time about environmental concerns.

“The park may be a sanctuary, but it isn’t an island,” the film’s narrator says. “Its natural treasures are threatened by sprawling human development and nonnative pests and diseases. . . .

“The Smokies were named for their natural blue mist. [But] today, air pollution from vehicles and smokestacks hundreds of miles away muddies the skies.”

Gary Wade, a Sevier County native, state appeals court judge and president of the Friends group, acknowledged that some local businesspeople may worry about scaring off tourists, but said the park’s obligation is its preservation.

Besides, he said, “If you lived in this area for the last 50 years like I have, you know that the air quality is not as good as it was and the visibility some days is terrible. There are days in the summer when you can hardly see the outline of the mountaintops.”

It’s an unprecedented stand by the park. But Karen Wade said it is justified.

“We feel like the park is a barometer of what is happening in a much wider region,” she said. “And we have a duty and a responsibility to articulate the issue not only about how it affects the park itself but how it is affecting our neighboring communities.”