Scumbria and thread,
Alaska Parks Top Most Endangered List
Funding, Pollution Threaten Parks
Reuters
WASHINGTON (April 4) - Air pollution threatens the health of U.S. national parks and President George W. Bush's environmental policy could aggravate the situation, conservationists said on Wednesday.
The National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), publishing their annual list of the most endangered parks, called on Bush to keep his pledge to seek nearly $5 billion to rectify national park budget shortfalls.
"Our national parks are in dire need of funding and immediate protection from threats including air pollution and development," Thomas Kiernan, NPCA president, said in a statement.
Visitors to Big Bend National Park in Texas, included on the list for the first time, used to enjoy views of more than 100 miles but air pollution has slashed visibility to 9 miles at times, the NPCA said.
"We need to clean up the dirty power plants in Texas and Mexico ... so this park can live," said Dave Simon, NPCA director for the southwest.
He castigated Bush for abandoning a campaign promise to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. In March Bush said he would not seek to impose mandatory emission reductions at electrical power plants, fearing it would lead to higher energy prices.
"That decision may soon prove to have serious consequences on the health of our national parks," Simon said.
Don Barger, director for the southeast where the Great Smoky Mountains Park made the list for the third consecutive year, urged Congress to remove a loophole that exempts older coal-fired power plants from current regulations.
But the list showed tourists can be as much of a danger.
It said visitors to the Petrified Forest National Park illegally disturb or steal up to 12 tonnes of fossilized tree remains that give the park its name.
Yellowstone, the world's first national park, is at risk from snowmobiles, although the National Park Service has decided to phase out their use, it said.
And plans to cut a 90-mile railroad through the northern reaches of the Denali National Park in Alaska put it on the endangered list.
The NPCA most endangered national parks were:
--Alaskan parks, including Denali, Katmai, Gates of the Arctic, Glacier Bay and Wrangell-St. Elias;
--Big Bend National Park, Texas;
--Fire Island National Seashore, New York;
--Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, Washington D.C.;
--Glacier National Park, Montana;
--Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina;
--Petrified Forest National Park, Arizona;
--Everglades, Biscayne Bay and Big Cypress, Florida;
--Stones River National Battlefield, Tennessee;
--Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming and Montana.
Reuters 16:07 04-04-01
Copyright 2001 Reuters Limited |
