Acadia among national parks violating air quality standard

WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce next week that the air quality in areas that include at least eight of the United States’ most popular national parks – including Acadia in Maine – is in violation of a new and more protective federal smog standard, National Park Service officials said Wednesday.

Yosemite Park would join three national parks in California – Sequoia, Kings Canyon and Joshua Tree – listed as having unhealthy air. The air quality in those three parks already violates the EPA’s old and less stringent smog standard, which was based on a one-hour measurement of air quality. That is being phased out in favor of an eight-hour measurement. In addition to those in Maine and California, other popular national parks to be newly designated as having dirty air include Rocky Mountain in Colorado, Great Smoky Mountain in North Carolina and Tennessee, and Shenandoah in Virginia, National Park Service officials said.

“The fact that the behavior of society is messing up the cities we have learned to expect, but to have the same effects occur in areas that are supposed to be special national treasures is disturbing, to say the least,” said Christine Shaver, chief of the air resources division of the National Park Service.

The EPA’s announcement, scheduled for next Thursday, will identify the counties across the country that exceed the new standard for ground-level ozone, the main component of smog. State and local governments will be required to devise plans to clean up the air by specified deadlines that vary from three years to 20 years, depending on the severity of the pollution problem.