Protecting the Smokies

Protecting the Smokies

■ Air pollution and our national park are on dangerous collision course

If the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and the ozone level weren't exactly compatible last year, the two this year are locked on a collision course and headed for serious problems.

This year, the park issued its first ozone advisory on March 8, the earliest date in the park's history. Since then, there have been 12 days when the park's ground-level ozone has exceeded health standards set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

That puts the park on track to surpass last year's record of 52 days of high ozone - enough to prompt some clean-air advocacy groups to action.

Ozone forms when nitrogen oxides emitted by power plants, factories or gasoline-burning engines mix with hydrocarbons in the presence of sunlight. Ozone is a colorless gas that can damage human lung tissue. It poses a health threat for children, the elderly and anyone with asthma or lung disease.

The advocates include the National Parks Conservation Association, which recently ranked the Smokies among the 10 most at-risk parks in the nation for the second year in a row. It is supported by a coalition of clean-air groups known as the Tennessee Clean Air Task Force.

They are seeking to generate public support for two bills before Congress. The proposed legislation would close a loophole that allows coal-fired plants built before 1985 to operate with lower emission standards than new plants.

Passage of the bills - and their enforcement - would reduce nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, carbon dioxides and mercury in power plant emissions. Thus far, the bills have failed to win the support of a single Tennessee representative.

That's unfortunate, since the Smokies is the most visited national park in America. Inaction on the pollution problems affecting the park diminishes its importance among the country's national parks and decreases its value as a tourist attraction.

Our national parks, especially the Smokies in our area, are sitting ducks for air pollution problems. The parks cannot be moved to a better location, but Congress is not powerless to take action. Increased restrictions on coal-fired plants will be a big help.

Of greater help will be an awareness that we humans are capable of destroying a treasure in our midst through our benign neglect. We need to direct our energies toward protecting the Smokies before there is too little left of this treasure to protect.