Preserving the Smokies

Preserving the Smokies

Cleaner air could boost tourism, study says, but holds a paradox for park

It might appear perfectly logical that pollution in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is costing the surrounding area in tourist dollars. Now, a recent study has confirmed it.

"Out of Sight: Haze in Our National Parks" is the title of the report commissioned by several environmental groups. The study was produced by Abt Associates of Bethesda, Md.

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. The study complements the regulations issued last year by the Environmental Protection Agency requiring that visibility at national parks be improved by 15 percent each decade. According to the EPA plan, pristine conditions would return to the parks over a 60-year period.

Specifically, pristine conditions right now, the Abt study contends, could boost annual visitation to the park by 25 percent, increase sales in the surrounding vicinity by $296 million. That, in turn, could increase tax revenue by $24 million and could create 4,188 jobs.

Of course, any incentive for reducing the terrible air pollution in the Smokies should be encouraged, but the overall value of the park cannot be so easily quantified. It should be preserved for its own sake.

The park had 52 days last year when the ozone level was considered unhealthy, presenting breathing problems for visitors and especially affecting those with respiratory conditions. That is the equivalent of one day per week for the entire year. Visibility, once at more than 90 miles, has dropped to about 25 miles on clear days and to about 15 miles in the summer.

However, the study's results offer a paradox of sorts. While requiring tougher standards for coal-fired power plants, including those of the Tennessee Valley Authority, is a proper course, this policy attacks only half the problem. The other half raises the question of whether, as one observer noted, we can love our mountains to death.

Increasing tourism in the Smokies, already the most visited national park in the nation with 10.3 million visits in 1999, means more vehicles --all of which contribute to the other half of the pollution problem for the park. While the EPA has addressed this problem, some park officials believe the federal agency has not done enough.

Light-rail transportation would provide relief, but that is not even on the drawing board and would be years away at any rate. No doubt many drivers think about light rail while sitting in long lanes of traffic en route to the park.

No, the key to the tourism business in the Smokies area is a national park with clean air, where visitors are not wheezing and plants and trees are not dying from toxic substances in the atmosphere. If the park deteriorates, it will have a disastrous impact on the economy of the entire region, but it will be a bigger disaster for the delicate balance of nature and the health of all living things in East Tennessee.

Thus, preserving the natural environment in as clean a state as possible and making substantial progress against air pollution should not be merely the primary goal but the only reasonable goal, both ecologically and economically.