Hikers climbing up Shenandoah National Park’s Old Rag might find their view of the Blue Ridge Mountains obscured by smog as the summer tourism season kicks into gear.
Many national parks have had problems with ozone for years, but the Environmental Protection Agency is working on stricter regulations that officials hope will keep air pollution from clouding the views from mountaintops and hurting the lungs of park visitors.
Despite those areas being owned by the federal government, the states are responsible for the air quality in national parks and federal wilderness areas, said Jeffrey Olson, a public affairs officer at the National Park Service.
Twenty-six of the nation’s 58 national parks and many of its wilderness areas would be in violation of the Environmental Protection Agency’s new ozone standards when they take effect. The EPA tightened its standard last year, from 75 parts per billion to 70 parts per billion.
Critics of the EPA rules say it’s nearly impossible for the counties surrounding national parks to comply with the new standards because they are in wilderness areas without much industry nearby. Not being in compliance could end up harming a county’s economic future, critics say.
“Most air pollution affecting parks comes from outside park boundaries and is transported into the parks by the winds,” Olson said in an email. “To the extent that in-park sources may be identified as contributors, the [park service] follows the appropriate regulations to reduce emissions.”
The biggest cause of those in-park emissions is vehicles driving around the expansive public lands.
While some national parks, such as Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park, ban cars completely and others, such as Zion National Park and Denali National Park, have areas that are off-limits to private vehicles, many are crisscrossed by thoroughfares.
But emissions from motor vehicles are not the main reason why cars are limited from some areas in favor of park-run shuttles, Olson said.
“Park shuttles are most often employed with the primary goal of improving the visitor experience by reducing congestion on park roads,” he said. “This has the ancillary benefit of also reducing emissions.”
He added that he’s not aware of any parks planning to add electric buses to cut down on smog.
The EPA is attempting to solve the problem of air pollution in national parks with further regulation by working on cutting down on what it calls “regional haze,” or pollution that affects views in America’s scenic places.
“The regional haze program helps to protect clear views in national parks, such as Grand Canyon National Park, and wilderness areas, such as the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge,” the EPA stated in a rule proposal. “Vistas in these areas are often obscured by regional haze caused by emissions from numerous sources located over a wide geographic area.”
The Regional Haze Rule is nearing the end of its first 10-year planning period when states were required to submit plans to cut down on pollution that decreases visibility. Between 2018 and 2021, states would be required to submit new plans to cut down on regional haze, including ozone emissions. The EPA would require the plans to be in effect by 2028.
The EPA plans to require states to address situations in which one major polluter is causing reduced visibility in a national park or wilderness area and strengthen consultation requirements to catch potential issues quicker. Emissions reduction goals would need to be strengthened as well, the agency said in the proposal.
The states were first required to submit plans in 2007, and visibility in national parks has improved since then, the EPA says. The agency estimated air quality controls put in place since then resulted in the reduction 500,000 tons of sulfur dioxide emissions and 300,000 tons of nitrous oxide emissions per year, the equivalent of emissions released by 19 million cars in one year.
Those efforts to reduce air pollution have not impressed House Republicans, who earlier this month pushed a bill delaying the EPA’s ozone standards until 2025.
The House passed the Ozone Standards Implementation Act of 2016 in what Republicans say is an attempt to lessen the burden on state regulators who have to enforce the smog regulations. Sen. Shelley Capito, R-W.Va., has introduced companion legislation in the Senate, where it has been referred to the Environment and Public Works Committee.
Among the proposals in the House bill is a requirement for the EPA to study where ozone pollution is coming from.
Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., said the EPA’s ozone rules are unfair to states and counties that can’t control how much ozone pollution comes into their air because it’s blown there from other places.
He said the EPA must take a close look at whether it should be punishing places such as Utah, home to five national parks and 12 national monuments, recreation areas and historic trails, where sometimes 85 percent of ground-level ozone comes from outside state borders.
“Many areas in the West have little chance of identifying sufficient controls to achieve attainment because they’re not causing it,” Whitfield said on the House floor. “So, we’re simply saying [to] the EPA, do a study so that we know what’s being caused by other counties.”
