Press Mention Chattanooga Times / Chattanooga Free Press June 19, 2000
SACE Quoted
Smokies' Ozone Worries Growing
In this mention
The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is experiencing record ozone pollution, with the earliest ozone advisory in park history issued on March 8, 2000. Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, calls for political action against air pollution, while the National Parks Conservation Association leads a summer campaign to push Congress to close loopholes allowing older coal-fired power plants to operate with lower emission standards.
We need to move from talk to action. While most of our elected officials say they know there is a problem, none of them have done anything about it.
Stephen A. Smith
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Full transcript
Smokies'
Ozone
Worries
Growing
BY MORGAN SIMMONS
Scripps Howard News Service
KNOXVILLE — This year the Great Smoky Mountains National 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 — a colorless gas that can sear human lung tissue like a sunburn — has exceeded health standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency.
With the park on track to break last year's record of 52 days of high ozone, clean-air advocates say the best time to lobby state and federal officials is this summer.
"We need to move from talk to action," said Stephen Smith, executive director of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. "While most of our elected officials say they know there is a problem, none of them have done anything about it."
Leading this summer's call for political action against the park's air pollution is the National Parks Conservation Association, a national parks advocacy organization that recently ranked the Great Smoky Mountains National Park among the 10 most "at risk" parks in the nation for the second year in a row.
"This listing directly challenges most citizens' perception that national parks are protected," said Don Barger, NPCA's southeast regional director. "Nothing could be farther from the truth. Our parks are under assault from many threats, and air pollution is the most critical in the Smokies."
Every Saturday this summer, conservation association staff members plan to educate the park's visitors on the severity of the park's air pollution and to encourage a course of action.
Specifically, NPCA, backed by a coalition of clean-air groups known as the Tennessee Clean Air Task Force, wants to generate a ground swell of public support for two bills currently before Congress that would close a loophole allowing coal-fired plants built before 1985 to operate with lower emission standards than new plants.
The bills, which would significantly reduce nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides, carbon dioxides and mercury in power-plant emissions, so far have failed to win the support of a single congressional representative from Tennessee.
"Air pollution is defeating the purpose for which people come to the park," Barger said. "Congress needs to act, and they'll only do that if they hear from the people."