Cleaning Up The Haze Ask Dave a weather question

Dave Thurlow, Host

 
Hi, I'm Dave Thurlow from the Mount Washington Observatory and this is The Weather Notebook. Haze, which affects vizibility in most of the United States during the summer, is caused when particles in the air mix with moisture, with high humidity. The particles more and more in the last fifty years come from pollution, sulfur and aerosols from coal fired power plants.

"The visibility deteriorated over the last half century, essentially due to industrialization and the availability of electrical power.

Dr. Bruce Hill

That's Bruce Hill, the Senior Staff Scientist at the Appalachian Mountain Club in Gorham, NH. He says the efforts to clean up visibility reducing haze started in 1977:

"The Congress made cleaning up visibility in National Parks and wilderness areas a national goal in 1977 and very little has been done since then."

Nothing's been done, until now:

"The Environmental Protection Agency right now is finalizing a rule that would require states to develop programs to reduce and clean up the haze in national parks to natural conditions in a 60 year period or so."

Once the Clinton Administration approves what is known as the Ôregional haze rule', it's up to the states to develop a haze-reducing plan:

"Once this 300-page regulation is released, the states have to go back and begin their planning process. But they have a number of years to do this and they won't have to take any specific emission reductions actions for 9 more years. So, congress as well as the president and the EPA have given states and utility industry and others, plenty of flexibility."

Hill says the regional haze rule, along with the modernization of power plants in the next several years, should be enough to help us all see a bit further in the future. The Weather Notebook is underwritten by Subaru with major support provided by the National Science Foundation.

Follow this link to read Dr. Bruce Hill's testimony at the Subcommitte on Forests and Public Land Management Hearing on the Regiona Haze Rule. October 28, 1997.