Breton National Wildlife Refuge Air Quality Information
Overview
Congress designated most of Breton National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area in 1975, declaring that the area should remain undeveloped and "unimpaired" for future generations. In 1977, Congress further acknowledged the uniqueness of the Breton Wilderness Area by designating it a Class I air quality area, affording it special protection under the Clean Air Act. Congress gave the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), as the Federal Land Manager of the Breton Wilderness Area, the responsibility to protect the air quality and natural resources, including visibility, of the area from manmade air pollution. Despite this protection, air pollution is harming Breton Wilderness Area. The air pollution comes from many sources: onshore industry, power plants, car emissions, offshore oil and gas development, and marine traffic.
FWS has begun a program to better understand air pollution causes and effects at Breton Wilderness Area. In cooperation with the States of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, the Minerals Management Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and onshore and offshore industry, the FWS is conducting a comprehensive air quality study to evaluate the effects of both onshore and offshore emissions in the wilderness area.
FWS monitors visibility conditions at Breton in partnership with the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) program, which measures fine airborne particles responsible for visibility impairment.
Water quality in the wilderness area may be at risk from air pollution. Research along the Gulf Coast has demonstrated that atmospheric nitrogen pollution (mainly from power plants and autos) has contributed to fertilization of coastal waters, with subsequent algae blooms, loss of seagrass beds, and deterioration of fish and wildlife habitat ("eutrophication").
If the Breton Wilderness Area is not protected, unique wildlife and scenic values will be threatened or even lost, as has happened along much of the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico. The FWS hopes to preserve and protect these special wilderness islands for future generations.
A study on sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide increments at Breton Wilderness is availale at Minerals Management Service Study on S02 and NOx Increments at Breton Wilderness.