Unhealthy ozone levels

In this mention

Park rangers at Great Smoky Mountains National Park are warning visitors with respiratory problems to avoid higher elevations due to unhealthy ozone levels recorded at monitoring stations. The park has already recorded 10 unhealthy ozone days in 2000, six weeks ahead of the previous year's pace. The article notes that ozone forms when pollution from power plants and vehicles mixes with airborne organic compounds and is heated by the sun.

We are about six weeks ahead of last year's pace as far as ozone. We've just had this smoggy mess hanging over us.
Janet Miller

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Unhealthy ozone
levels
CATALOOCHEE, N.C. (AP)—
Park rangers in the Great Smoky
Mountains National Park are
warning people with respiratory
problems to avoid higher eleva-
tions because of unhealthy ozone
levels.

    Monitoring stations in the

park have recorded unhealthy
ozone levels on 10 days already
this year when that many days
had not occurred until July 23
last year.

       "We are about six weeks

ahead of last year's pace as far as
ozone," said park spokesman Bob
Miller. "We've just had this smog-
gy mess hanging over us."

Two of the park's five air quality
monitoring stations above
4,000 feet have recorded
unhealthy ozone levels since Fri-
day. The monitoring station on
Clingmans Dome, an area that
attracts about 5,000 visitors each
weekend, set an ozone level
record with 128 parts per billion.
Federal guidelines state an ozone
concentration of more than 85
parts per billion is unhealthy.

      On unhealthy air quality

days, pollution from power plants
and vehicles mixes with airborne
organic compounds and is heated
by the sun to produce ozone.