Ecoregions Main Appalachian Region Main National Forest Protection Campaign Great Smokies Campaign Clean Air Campaign Appalachian Regional Office

Southern Appalachian Air Quality Throughout the Southern Appalachians, air quality has suffered drastically over the last several decades. While automobile exhaust and other mobile sources contribute to the decreasing air quality, large electric utilities that continue to operate generating facilities in violation of Clean Air Act (CAA) rules are the main source of increased air pollution. These plants, which are responsible by law for obtaining the necessary permits and installing required pollution control equipment before increasing emissions, have instead undergone major modifications in violation of the CAA. The view from Look Rock Tower in Great Smoky Mountains National Park -- on a GOOD day The same view -- on a BAD day The Southern Appalachians are uniquely positioned to receive the brunt of much of this pollution, trapping at the higher elevations the airborne pollutants blown eastward by the prevailing winds from large utilities and industrial centers in West Virginia, the Ohio Valley, northern Alabama, and western Tennessee. These pollutants--precursors to acid rain, smog, and ground-level ozone--are responsible for increased mortality and respiratory failure, especially in children and the elderly. Acid rain and ozone destroy living tissue in plants and are responsible for tree death at higher elevations along the Appalachian ridges. Stream acidification destroys aquatic life and sterilizes native trout streams. The crown jewels of the National Park System, the Great Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah National Parks, are so besieged by bad air that visibility of the magnificent mountain vistas is reduced to but a fraction of what it once was, and higher-elevation spruce and oak forests are denuded. While the passage of the North Carolina Clean Smokestacks Act of 2002 helped point the way for a regional approach to addressing these problems, the Bush administration has been actively working to reverse decades of air-quality improvement as a result of the passage of the Clean Air Act over 30 years ago. The Bush administration's "Clear Skies (or Clear Lies) Initiative" is a blatant attempt to hand control of pollution back to the polluters, and the Administration's recent re-writing of the New Source Review (NSR) provisions of the CAA will drastically increase emissions of chemical refineries, industrial plants, and utilities. The Southern Appalachian Highlands Ecoregion has taken the lead in working with partner organizations in the region to hold one utility, in particular, accountable for its excessive emissions. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is the subject of three different lawsuits targeting four of its coal-fired generators in Tennessee and Alabama. The aim of this litigation is to force TVA into compliance with both the NSR provisions and opacity (soot) emissions regulated by the Clean Air Act and state plans. But litigation alone is not enough, and SAHE is pursuing an aggressive campaign of public education on the clean air issue, targeting folks who have the opportunity to experience first-hand the effects of these emissions: visitors to the region's national parks. Beginning in 2004, SAHE will regularly distribute literature and advocacy material at Great Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah national parks, getting the message out that "We can do better," if we renounce the Bush administration's efforts to hand our air back to the very industries that made it bad, and instead do what we have done to date: supporting and strengthening the Clean Air Act, and working to bring accountability and responsibility to these polluting industries and their apologists in the Bush administration. Up to Top