EPA asked to restore and protect air quality in parks
On 19 July 2000 the Department of the Interior asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for a rule to restore and protect air quality-related values in national parks and wilderness areas (Class I areas). The Department also requested more immediate action to reverse deteriorating air quality trends at Great Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah National Parks and Blue Ridge Parkway. The National Park Service has documented that air quality-related values are being adversely affected by air pollution at numerous national parks and wilderness areas, such as acidification of streams, surface waters, or soils at Shenandoah, Sequoia-Kings, and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks; visibility impairment in many parks and wildernesses; and damage to foliage from ozone at a number of parks and wildernesses, including Great Smoky Mountains, Shenandoah, Sequoia-Kings, and Yosemite National Parks. In other areas it is strongly suspected that resources are, or may soon be, damaged by air pollution (e.g., increasing nitrate deposition at Rocky Mountain National Park, where episodic acidification already occurs; possible symptoms of ozone injury at some parks on the Colorado Plateau). The EPA extended the public comment period regarding the rulemaking request, and a related request from several northeastern states, until 2 April 2001.
On a related matter, Shenandoah National Park hosted a September meeting among EPA, Shenandoah, Great Smoky Mountains, USDA Forest Service, and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representatives to further discuss the air pollution problems in parks and wilderness areas, and to discuss short-term (one to three years) and long-term (three to five years) expectations and actions. In the short term, the EPA will issue guidance to the states regarding the need to look more closely at impacts on parks. In the long term, the EPA will consider information the National Park Service and others submit during the public comment period before deciding on a course of action.
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Ozone-injured tall milkweed, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Articles
Environmental impacts from snowmobiles scrutinized
By Holly Sharpless
Applying new technology to mitigate acid mine drainage in the Northeast
By Kathleen Kodish Reeder
Geoindicators: A tool for monitoring and understanding ecosystem change in parks
By Bob Higgins and Jim Wood
Implementing the National Parks Omnibus Management Act of 1998
By Carol McCoy
Prudential algebra
By Glenn Haas
The unprecedented 2000 fire season
By Tom Zimmerman
Sidebars
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Last Updated: 06/17/2001
Direct comments on this website to jeff_selleck@nps.gov