ACADIA NATIONAL PARK – The sun shone brightly in clear skies over Cadillac Mountain on Friday, but through much of the summer, this most famous of tourist destinations is murky with the smog that blots out the islands of Penobscot Bay and makes even the gentlest hike a physical challenge.

Maine has a serious air quality problem, and the Bush administration policies announced last week will only make the situation worse, said state environmental officials, representatives of Maine’s congressional delegation, and members of health and environmental advocacy groups during a Friday morning hike and mountaintop press conference held in honor of Earth Day, which was celebrated April 22.

Acadia “represents the best of Maine’s natural beauty, but also the worst of Maine’s persistent ground-level ozone problem,” Assistant Maine Attorney General Jerry Reid said Friday.

Ozone, which is also known as smog, is created when pollutants created from the burning of fossil fuels such as gasoline and coal rise into the air and come in contact with ultraviolet radiation.

Last week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced that the ozone levels in 108 southern and coastal Maine communities violate federal air quality standards. Acadia, because of its location at the northeasterly end of a prevailing wind current, is particularly dirty, in spite of its location far from any “dirty” industry.

In response, the EPA last week announced the details of a policy that federal administrators called “strong medicine” for the problem of air pollution being transported from state to state. Known as the “haze rule,” guidelines are aimed at reducing the amount of smog that affects wilderness areas and natural parks such as Acadia by requiring pollution controls at power plants and factories which were built before 1977 and aren’t required to meet the standards of the Clean Air Act.

However, environmentalists such as Sue Jones of the Natural Resources Council of Maine point out that the federal guidelines don’t require that the equipment be installed until 2014 at the earliest and that the air above national parks isn’t predicted to be clean until 2064. The Bush administration argues that companies need time to develop and install equipment.

This week, Jones called the deadlines “a joke.”

“We don’t believe that the administration’s approach is going to bring any clean air to Maine,” Jones said. “It’s certainly not going to happen in my lifetime.”

According to Maine Department of Environmental Protection meteorologists, Maine’s three biggest sources of dirty air are: the Boston to Portland metropolitan area, the New York to Connecticut metropolitan area, and Midwestern pollution, primarily from power plants.

“Because these emissions come from out of state, they’re not within our jurisdiction,” Reid said Friday.

However, the Maine Attorney General’s Office has already joined with 12 other states to sue the EPA over air quality rule changes announced last year, which they believe will result in increased emissions of pollution by allowing old, grandfathered power plants to avoid upgrading their pollution control equipment.

On Christmas Eve 2003, a federal judge upheld the states’ claim that the rules violate the federal Clean Air Act, so the changes are now on hold until a court makes its final decision, Reid said Friday.

The states also may soon sue the government over pending federal rules on mercury emissions, he said.

DEP employees and state legislators also recently have sent official comments against proposed industrial developments in New York and the Midwest that they believe would harm Maine’s air and would not be controlled by federal rules.

“We really need to see stronger enforcement from the EPA. Increasing amounts of pollution and putting longer timelines on the deadlines for power plants to clean up will not improve our air,” said Matthew Davis of Environment Maine, a Portland-based advocacy group.

Both of Maine’s Republican U.S. senators also support bills with stronger air quality regulations than in the EPA plan.

But to have any credibility in demanding federal action, Maine has to have “clean hands,” said Ron Severance of the DEP’s air bureau.

“If we expect the states to the south and the southwest to do things, we need to take control of our own air problems,” Severance said.

The DEP is considering whether to recommend that Maine join the zero emissions vehicle program started by California, which would require that 10 percent of all vehicles sold in Maine be either hybrid-electric-powered or gasoline-powered with extremely low emissions.

The state is already in the process of implementing a long list of small steps to reduce the chemicals from gasoline, paint and aerosol cans that can pollute the air, Severance said.

As individuals, he said, all Mainers must do their part to reduce air pollution by considering what type of vehicles they drive and when they really need to drive. Nationwide, half of all air pollution comes from vehicles, he said.

“Though it appears to be very little, in the aggregate it adds up to a lot of emissions,” Severance said.