Cleaner Air Could Boost Smokies' Economy

K N O X V I L L E, Tenn., Sept. 1, 2000 -- Cleaner air could boost thetourism-driven economy surrounding the Great Smoky MountainsNational Park by as much as $300 million, according to a studycommissioned by several environmental groups.

“It has been hazy so long that we think it is natural. It isnot,” said Leland Deck, an environmental economist atBethesda, Md.-based Abt Associates Inc., which produced the study“Out of Sight: Haze in Our National Parks.”

“It is a logical assumption that it would be affecting oureconomies,” said Ulla-Britt Reeves of the Southern Alliance forClean Energy in Knoxville. “Now we can actually quantify it.”

The study examined the impact of pollutants from coal-firedpower plants on seven of the country’s most popular national parks,including the Smokies in Tennessee and North Carolina.

Old Power Plants

The report was released Wednesday, one day after the TennesseeValley Authority, the country’s largest public power producer,approved several million dollars more for anti-pollution equipment,this time for its coal-fired plant in Memphis.

Tennessee Environment and Conservation Commissioner MiltonHamilton praised TVA’s commitment “to help keep Tennessee’s airand the air across the Southeast pure. We know you have a problem.You are addressing that problem. You are committing many resources.[And] to that we say, thank you.”

But environmentalists want more from TVA and other utilitiesthat are fighting tougher emission standards on their old powerplants.

The Environmental Protection Agency last year issued regulationsrequiring that visibility at 156 national parks be improved by 15percent each decade, returning to pristine conditions over a60-year period.

If the air was pristine now, the Abt study concluded thatvisitation to the parks could jump as much as 25 percent. Thatcould boost sales in the Smokies economy by $296 million, increasetax revenue $24 million and create 4,188 jobs, the study said.

“We have no way of estimating really the magnitude of theincrease in tourism,” Deck said. “Logically, it would happen. Butno one to my knowledge can say if visibility improves ‘X’ thenvisitation rates will go up ‘Y.’”

Price No Matter

So the researchers decided to focus on “what’s at stake” andmake assumptions, he said. A key element was the value placed onclean air by the public in a previous EPA-Park Service survey. Thatfound the average household in the Southeast would be willing topay $68 a year for a 100 percent improvement in visibility innational parks.

“The public is very interested in clear air and we recognizethat a visitor to the Smokies and other national parks with airpollution problems aren’t getting the fullest experiencepossible,” Smokies spokeswoman Nancy Gray said.

The Smokies, which had a record 52 days of unhealthy air qualitylast year, found in a 1996 survey of visitors that clean air andvisibility were “extremely important” to more than 80 percent ofthem, Gray said.

Vesna Plakanis, who runs an equestrian guide service, said whenthe air is poor she has had to reroute hikes and in the processlost business.

But David Perella, Gatlinburg’s tourism director, said hisoffice hasn’t received a single letter of complaint. Still, hesaid, Gatlinburg officials know air quality is a problem.

The city is supporting a new TVA “green power” program and isconsidering buying natural-gas powered police vehicles, just likenearby Pigeon Forge.

“Our position is that we certainly want to support all theefforts available to clean up the air,” Perella said. “We justbelieve that needs to happen, and the sooner the better, … at thefederal level.”