THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, August 26, 1995 TAG: 9508260004
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 42 lines
Shenandoah National Park has come up with a new tourist attraction: air pollution.
When the 195,000-acre park was established in the Blue Ridge Mountains in 1936, the Washington Monument, 77 miles to the northeast, was usually visible through binoculars.
Nowadays the monument is visible from the park only one or two days a year, and the park has the most-polluted air of the 48 largest national parks.
From 1991 to 1993, the park air was so polluted that one could see more than 30 miles only 16 percent of summer days. For whatever reason, last year was better, with 23 percent of the summer days that clear. By comparison, one often can see 150 miles through the pure, dry air out West.
The park air is hard to see through because it is befouled by emissions blown in from factories, cars and coal-burning power plants.
Last weekend the first seminar on air pollution in the park was held there. Thirty people attended the daylong event, which included fieldwork.
Participants used magnifying glasses to spot the clusters of minuscule black dots that are a telltale sign of ozone damage. Everywhere they looked they discovered signs of ozone damage. The park air might be described as good for a city, lousy for a mountain.
Part of the message of the seminar, said Julie Thomas, the park's air-quality manager, was that we all contribute to pollution every time we use electricity - drying our hair or leaving a light on.
We all fight air pollution, she said, when we use electricity wisely.
``I'm learning the most obvious thing today,'' said Alice Davis, 54, a minister who attended the seminar. ``When I turn on my air conditioner at 5 p.m. in Leesburg, I'm forcing a power plant somewhere near here to burn fuel that's going to pollute the park.'' by CNB