Air Resource Management
Region 8, USDA Forest Service
Air pollutants of concern:
Ozone
Acid deposition
Fine particles
Mercury
Air pollution impacts:
Wilderness
Visibility
Vegetation
Soils and
Streams
People
Real-time data
Shining Rock
Joyce Kilmer
How to improve air quality.
PSD permits
SAMI
Regional Haze
Other efforts
Software tools
Ozone Calculator
Emissions tool
VSmoke-GIS
WinHaze
Why do we monitor air quality and visibility?
According to the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1977 the USDA Forest Service is to advise the appropriate air regulatory agency if a "significant" new source of air pollution could have an adverse impact to any of the air quality related values (AQRV) at three Class I areas in western North Carolina. These Class I areas are Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock, Linville Gorge Wilderness, and Shining Rock Wilderness.
Each of the three Class I areas have several reasons why they were Federally designated as a wilderness. For example, both Linville Gorge and Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock were noted for the old-growth forests which have never been harvested. Shining Rock and and Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock have cold mountains streams supporting trout and other aquatic organisms. Furthermore, each wilderness was noted to have scenic views that people enjoy. One important characteristic of any wilderness is these special areas were set aside to allow natural processes to occur, and people are only visitors. Our Congress recognized in 1977 that air pollution could result in an adverse impact to the natural resources at the Class I areas. Specifically, Congress recognize air pollution could impact visibility and established a national goal to have no impairment to visibility through people's air pollution.
Protecting the AQRV of the Class I areas, as well as the whole National Forest, from adverse air pollution impacts is one example of how the Forest Service is "caring for the land, and serving people." Previously, the Forest Service has focused their efforts at the three Class I areas on conducting inventories and monitoring to determine what resources are present (for example vegetation communities, or soil types), which resources are most sensitive to air pollution, as well as taking daily photographs to document historical visibility conditions. The visibility monitoring data, along with available research, resulted in the Forest Service notifying eight State air regulatory agencies that air pollution was having an adverse impact to visibility at the three Class I areas.
Recently, the Forest Service has been using inventory and monitoring data to determine what impact ozone may be having on vegetation, and how atmospheric deposition may be impacting water chemistry and the nutrients needed for vegetation and aquatic organisms to grow and be healthy. The Forest Service has also been cooperating with the North Carolina Division of Air Quality in performing real-time monitoring for visibility and ground-level ozone, and determining what fine particles are causing visibility impairment. The available data from the ozone, visibility, and fine particle monitoring are available to anyone through the internet. The results from the monitoring are being used to determine if current air pollution exposures are causing an adverse impact to the AQRV, and if people visiting the Class I areas or portion of the National Forest could have unhealthy exposures to air pollution.
Cooperation with others outside of the Forest Service is a key component of the Air Resource Management program and the efforts have resulted in reducing air pollution within the region. Seeking ways to encourage air pollution reductions from existing stationary and mobile sources of air pollution, as well as reviewing permits for new sources of air pollution will continue to be important components of the program.
The development of software tools has assisted air resource specialists and other people to be able to use the ozone monitoring data to conduct an ozone analysis. The visibility and fine particle data have been incorporated into the WinHaze program so a person can perform a simple visibility analysis. The Forest Service also emits air pollution into the atmosphere and the management activity of greatest concern is prescribed fires. A simple screening model (called VSmoke-GIS) has been developed by the Forest Service to determine what impact particulate matter emissions may have on highway visibility and people's health.
Monitoring shelter for Joyce
Kilmer-Slickrock Wilderness
High elevation bald
near Shining Rock Wilderness
Sunset at Cold Mountain