Cleaner Smokies would boost tourism

Cleaner Smokies would boost tourism
By Duncan Mansfield
Associated Press Writer

KNOXVILLE — Cleaner air could boost the tourism-driven economy surrounding the Great Smoky Mountains National Park by as much as $300 million, according to a study commissioned by several environmental groups.

"It has been hazy so long that we think it is natural. It is not," said Dr. Leland Deck, an environmental economist at Bethesda, Md.-based Abt Associates Inc., which produced the study "Out of Sight: Haze in our National Parks."

"It is a logical assumption that it would be affecting our economies," said Ulla-Britt Reeves of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy in Knoxville. "Now we can actually quantify it."

The study examined the impact of pollutants from coal-fired power plants on seven of the country's most popular national parks, including the Smokies in Tennessee and North Carolina.

The report was released Wednesday, one day after the Tennessee Valley Authority, the country's largest public power producer, approved several million dollars more for anti-pollution equipment, this time for its coal-fired plant in Memphis.

State Environment and Conservation Commissioner Milton Hamilton praised TVA's commitment "to help keep Tennessee's air and the air across the Southeast pure. We know you have a problem. You are addressing that problem. You are committing many resources. (And) to that we say, thank you."

But environmentalists want more from TVA and other utilities that are fighting tougher emission standards on their old power plants.

The Environmental Protection Agency last year issued regulations requiring that visibility at 156 national parks be improved by 15 percent each decade, returning to pristine conditions over a 60-year period.

If the air was pristine now, the Abt study concluded that visitation to the parks could jump as much as 25 percent. That could boost sales in the Smokies economy by $296 million, increase tax revenue $24 million and create 4,188 jobs, the study said.

"We have no way of estimating really the magnitude of the increase in tourism," Deck said. "Logically, it would happen. But no one to my knowledge can say if visibility improves 'X' then visitation rates will go up 'Y.'"

So the researchers decided to focus on "what's at stake" and make assumptions, he said. A key element was the value placed on clean air by the public in a previous EPA-Park Service survey. That found the average house-hold in the Southeast would be willing to pay $68 a year for a 100 percent improvement in visibility in national parks.

"The public is very interested in clear air and we recognize that a visitor to the Smokies and other national parks with air pollution problems aren't getting the fullest experience possible," Smokies spokeswoman Nancy Gray said.

The Smokies, which had a record 52 days of unhealthy air quality last year, found in a 1996 survey of visitors that clean air and visibility were "extremely important" to more than 80 percent of them, Gray said.

Vesna Plakanis, who runs an equestrian guide service, said when the air is poor she has had to reroute hikes and in the process lost business.

But David Perella, Gatlinburg's tourism director, said his office hasn't received a single letter of complaint. Still, he said, Gatlinburg officials know air quality is a problem.

The city is supporting a new TVA "green power" program and is considering buying natural-gas powered police vehicles, just like nearby Pigeon Forge.

"Our position is that we certainly want to support all the efforts available to clean up the air," Perella said. "We just believe that needs to happen, and the sooner the better, . . . at the federal level."