Endangering Our National Parks: An Editorial (cont'd)

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THEY DON'T CALL THEM "THE SMOKIES" FOR NOTHING

When they called them the Great Smoky Mountains, they didn't mean coal smoke. But that's what the Smokies got, in spades, from coal-fired power plants in the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys, according to the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA).

In 2002, America's most visited National Park also reigned as the nation's most polluted. The rain there is five to ten times more acidic than normal (clouds with the same acid levels as vinegar blanket the mountaintop spruce-fir forests), and the park registered a total 42 unhealthy air days in 2002.

Pollution has also caused visibility at Acadia National Park has dropped from a wintertime high of 110 miles to a haze summer low of 33 miles, led Sequoia National Park to issue health advisories on 81 days, and caused rains as acidic as lemon juice to fall on Shenandoah National Park.

Why all the bad news? Polluting factories right on the doorsteps of these National Treasures.

And it's going to get worse: Bush's EPA is doing away with the provision that would require the nation's 17,000 aging power plants--which produce from six to twelve times as many emissions as newer, more technologically-advanced ones--to upgrade their pollution controls should they want to expand.

CAN'T SEE THE FOREST FOR THE (CUTTING DOWN OF) TREES

Over three years of planning and 600 public meetings, the Roadless Rule--a Clinton-era provision to prevent logging trucks from getting at some 58 million acres, or 31 percent, of our National Forests--elicited one million comments.

Ninety-five percent of them were in favor of the rule. Despite this mighty expression of public will, the Bush Administration has now helped midwife a federal court decision to overturn the Roadless Rule. This would open every nook and cranny of our national forests to logging trucks--because the 360,000 miles of roads already snaking their way through 52 percent of our national forests apparently isn't enough.

What's more, you paid for those logging roads that the timber companies use. They cost the taxpayers $116 million in direct subsidies--that's $15,000 per mile. That means that we (a) donate the raw materials to the timber companies by signing over our national forests, and (b) help underwrite their operating costs by building roads.

Who is Bush's Department of Agriculture appointee in charge of overseeing the forest service? Mark Rey, formerly a lobbiest for the timber industry.

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