ROCKY MOUNTAIN NATIONAL PARK, Colo. — Hike through one of America's natural treasures -- home to black bears, elk and moose. Take a deep breath of mountain air -- as long as you're not asthmatic.
On some days, the wind blows enough pollution some 55 miles up from the sprawling metropolitan Denver area that the park violates federal clean air standards for ozone.
The murk also settles across the eastern Plains, angering farmers, and it reminds many residents of the brown cloud that used to hover over metropolitan Denver like a stifling blanket.
But it is in the park that the effects of the area's growing population -- 2.2 million in 2002 -- are perhaps most stark: The Environmental Protection Agency probably will include it when it declares 11 counties along Colorado's Front Range in violation of the Clean Air Act.
"2003 was a giant step backward in what has been an ongoing effort to try and protect public health and the environment from ozone and smog," said Vickie Patton, senior attorney for Environmental Defense in Boulder.
Jill Stephens, a program analyst with the National Parks Conservation Assn., said the question of air quality in national parks is a serious one.
The South's Great Smoky Mountains National Park, for example, has had 30 plant species visibly damaged by ozone, the association says. Since 1998, there have been 175 days with unhealthy ozone levels in the park, the country's most-visited.
Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks in California registered 61 unhealthy air days because of ozone pollution in 2001. And Shenandoah National Park in Virginia had some summer days where visibility is 10 miles.
"In Colorado, trends show that ozone pollution is increasing and, while you might not be at the level of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, you don't want to be in such a grave situation that that designation can be reversed," Stephens said.
Two years ago, federal officials said Denver was no longer violating major air quality rules, making it the first city in the nation to get a clean bill of health for the five federal air quality standards that it once violated.
But the EPA is about to remove that badge of honor after implementation of a tougher standard and some of the highest levels of ground-level ozone ever recorded in Denver. The city violated tougher new air quality standards at least 33 times.
