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 St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge |
St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), established in 1931, is located along the Gulf Coast of northwest Florida south of Tallahassee Florida, shown in green in the map to the right. The 70,000 acre refuge includes coastal marshes, islands, tidal creeks and estuaries and is home to a diverse community of plant and animal life, including thousands of waterfowl and other birds, fish and shellfish, and mammals such as the Florida Black Bear, white-tailed deer, otter and raccoon.
Refuge Area and Class I Designation
- In 1975, Congress designated 17,350 acres of St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge as a wilderness area, declaring that the area should remain undeveloped and "unimpaired" for future generations.
- In 1977, Congress further acknowledged the uniqueness of the St. Marks Wilderness Area by designating it as a Class I air quality area. As a wilderness area it is afforded special protection under the Clean Air Act
- Congress gave the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), as the Federal Land Manager of the St. Marks Wilderness Area, the responsibility to protect the air quality and natural resources, including visibility, of the area from man-made air pollution. Despite this protection, many sources of man-made air pollution affect St. Marks NWR including pulp mills and other industry, power plants, and automobiles.
- If the St. Marks Wilderness Area is not protected, unique wildlife and scenic values will be threatened or even lost, as has happened along much of the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico. The FWS hopes to preserve and protect this special wilderness for future generations.
Learn more about air quality at St. Marks
The FWS has begun a program to better understand air pollution causes and effects at St. Marks Wilderness Area. FWS monitors visibility conditions at St. Marks in partnership with the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) program, which measures fine airborne particles responsible for visibility impairment. Within this website are the resources to discover why air pollution poses a threat St. Marks NWR and what the FWS is doing to prevent the deterioration of air quality in this pristine area.
- Learn the basics of air quality - Air Quality
- Understand what are the air quality related values - AQRV
- Learn about how air quality can affect natural and scenic resources - Impacts
- Find real time monitoring data and studies being performed at the refuge - Studies & Monitoring
Additional Information:
Regional Air Quality Information (as provided by NPS)
St. Marks NWR Website
St. Marks NWR 300km Radius Map (PDF 622KB)
