http://www2.nature.nps.gov/ard/parks/grsm/grsmcam/grsmcam.htm

-- SM (Unreal@home.com), August 03, 2002

Answers

It's pretty scary & sad too to think that such a large,beautiful,somewhat isolated area(not counting the tourists) is getting that much pollution. Makes you wonder just how much is in our little parts of the world. I know that in southern KY it gets pretty hazy somedays & hard to breathe but I'm too far from a monitoring station to be sure what the amount & source is-our local TV station is 52 miles away and in a city of 55,000 so who knows what it is in my little country town of 226.

-- Kathy Aldridge (beckoningwinds@yahoo.com), August 04, 2002.

I can't remember the last time I could see Mt. LeConte from our house because of the haze. Saw a scientist interviewed on local tv the other day. He said the mountains here "catch" all the pollution from the west and north east. Perhaps the jet stream brings it down? Don't know and don't think the experts do either. I remember a few years ago in the summer where there were alerts out for the ozone levels, dangerously high. Then during the presidental elections Al Gore was running as the enviromentalist candidate. He should have started cleaning up his own state, he might have won it. The air gets ridiculous here. Some of it has to be the exhaust from vehicles, specifically all the tourists. 10 million or so a year. We need some kind of alternative. Wish the powers that be would focus on that instead of building, building and more building....Sevier county is getting wasted with overdevelopment.

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), August 04, 2002.

I went to Gatlinburg last year to see what it's like . I saw a sign that said it's unlawful to warm up your car or leave the engine running while parked for more than 10 minutes. Tonight was the first night I was able to see stars in about 6 weeks?. I was so happy to see them ,I laid outside and watched them for about 2 hours. I figured it may be a while before I get to see them again.

-- SM Steve (Unreal@home.com), August 05, 2002.

Mornin' Steve. Forgot to thank you for posting the link. Thanks! I get aggrivated at the people that run the county and got off on a little rant, I guess, and forgot my mannners. :) Did you get the rain yesterday evening? It cooled the temps here considerably and we even got a nice breeze from it.

Ahhhhhh, star gazing. I wish I would have went out and checked the sky last night....love looking at the stars! They're so much more vivid in the dark of the country!

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), August 05, 2002.

Annie ,we didn't get the rains here but we got a cool clear night. It felt refreshing . There were plans to put in trams ( public transportaion ) in the heavy traffic areas through the Smokies Mountains. The buisness owners were afraid they'd lose potential customers so they fought it off. The buisness owners figure if there is public transportaion , it won't be as easy to get tourist to there places as they can now drive there. Maybe when Governor Sunquist retires to his new home in Townsend , he'll notice the air isn't as clean as one would expect it to be in the mountains , and because he lives there , he'll use his connections and get something done . This is wishful thinking. The lack of praticpation by us locals who live here ,whether we're transplants or people born and raised here, doesn't help , this is our home and we need to let our politicians know we want clean air. I used to print up information from the internent and show it to people figuring they didn't know how bad the problem was and how it's getting worse every year. But no one seemed to care. . The only ones who took interest were some friends from Charolette S.C. , who've been coming here for the last 5 years to camp out with their kids and stay over at my place , they were here in june and told me they're only going to come here in the winter months because the air in the summer is to heavy . Now ,me sounding like the typical transplant by saying how they did it better where I came from, in Palm Beach Co. FL. the politicians found that because residents of the county were concerned about the air and water qualities, it was to the politicians advantage to participate in solutions to pollution. The mayor of Lake Worth , a town in Palm Beach co. would hold an annual swim across the intercoastal to bring attention to the public to participate in cleaning up and keeping pollution to a minimum. It also helped bring attention to himself that comes in helpful at election time , and the major was well like by buisness owners and residents. Although his motives were self serving ,he became a good swimmer , he kept his decent paying job , he lived in a fairly clean nieghborhood , had a good social life with people who liked him , and at the same time he was contibuting to a better quality enviorment that inhanced the quality of life for a lot of people. It's up to local residents to show our politicians the benifits they could recieve , by caring about everyone instead of lineing their pockets with cash , in exchange for letting buisnesses contibute to the depleting the oxygen content of the air. Someone who's organized ( that counts me out ) needs to be able to get the attention of the surrounding county residents of the Smokies and bring awareness of the advantages of flooding our local and state politicians offices with letters to show support for cleaner air and how much it'll mean to us when it comes election time . It would need to be someone who has good leadership skills , although I sometimes come up with an un thought out plan , I lack in these skills.

-- SM Steve (Unreal@home.com), August 05, 2002.

http://www.geocities.com/towcrime/greenpower.html http://cta.policy.net/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml? id=23780&PROACTIVE_ID=cecfcfcccfcfcfc8cdc5cecfcfcfc5cecfc6cec9cbcbcac8 c9c5cf http://www.cleanenergy.org/air/ClearingtheAir/johnsevier.html

-- SM Steve (Unreal@home.com), August 05, 2002.

Steve, one of the problem is..... we have good ol' boys that have money now! :) Most started out poor, got lots of money for their property and they just keep on a sellin and don't give a **** what's done with the property. The fella across the road from us lost it in the stock market, sheesh an old hillbilly playing the stocks, anyhow, he just auctioned off his land in parcels. Looks like a subdivision coming in. I'm lookin to move to a more remote county. Can't take the crowds anymore! Good luck having the ex-gov as a neighbor. hee hee

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), August 05, 2002.

Annie , I have my place on the market for a few months now . I have some family in Oregon and that's my destination. Only thing is , some of the nicest forrest there are burning up as I write. I'm a musician by trade , and I love living in the mountains , raising goats and growing vetgetables. The only way I can accomplish both lifestyles is having someone I can trust ,like family , watch my goats while I go on the road to get the higher paying music gigs. If I become a millionaire ( a musicians fantasy ) than I'd have enough money to become a farmer , my life long ambition. A great local blues singer from Knoxville, Sarah Jorden , died last year from an asthma attack. She was only 42 years old ,healthy looking and in good shape except for her asthma. The article written about her and her death in the Metro Pulse claimed the bad air was a contibuting factor to her death. She had a mesmerizing voice . I saw her perfom at Sassy Anne's in Knoxville a few years ago.

-- SM Steve (Unreal@home.com), August 05, 2002.

I didn't realize it was that bad, how terrible! I doubt we will ever learn....

Good luck with becoming a millionare Steve. I've known many musicians, no millionares yet, well.....no musical ones. ;-) Still, we all should follow our hearts. I'm a poor starving artist myself, lol.

-- Patty (SycamoreHollow@aol.com), August 05, 2002.

Wow, Annie and Steve! I didn't realize things were so bad on the TN side of these mountains. When we moved here we saw stars we'd never seen before. I haven't noticed a drop in air quality in the 4 years we've been here but, the views from the Blue Ridge Parkway are no longer as pristine as they use to be. Of course, our county is becoming a more well-known tourist area so it may not last long. That's why we live far away from it all! There is plenty of farm land available here, and, if you know where to look, at fairly decent prices, too.

-- Bren (wayoutfarm@skybest.com), August 05, 2002.

Bren the area you live in is a lot more rural and peaceful than here. It has alot more homesteads and alot less developement . Even though you get tourist, in Annies county it's a tourist attraction type of tourism. There's Dollywood a Dolly Parton type of Disneyland . There are miles of tourist attractions like rides for kids , malls, hotels, motels , resturants shops . It's like Las Vegas type of tourists. I think Annie said 10 million a year ? And the main roads are unbelievably packed with tourists there. I'm in Blount county.I don't see the tourist unless I go into Townsend or to a swim hole that has tourists as well as locals . But in Maryville 12 miles from me the traffic is getting heavier every day. It's mostly locals who don't have to move to other areas to get work because the economy is booming and the jobs are comming to them. It's the city of Knoxville expanding it's suburbon sprawl into our county. Also a lot of people are moving here because the crime is lower than where they come from or because of the jobs and the cost of housing is cheaper than where they come from.It's growing to fast and laws were past to stop subdivisions in the mountain areas two years ago. Where I live is real quite , but when I go over the mountain and get into town , everything seems like it's moving so fast...... Patty , do you sell your art work ? What type of art work are you doing ? I joke about the making millions $ so I can become a farmer. I just can't figure that something as important as raising food ,with food being a nessesity ,is hard to make a living at. And something like musical entertainment , that's not a nessesity pays so well even when your at the bottom. And people think so much of their favorite entertainer, but rarely have a favorite farmer that they become a fan of. Yet without farmers we couldn't eat. So I figured if I want to be a farmer I'll need a few million dollars to live off of , because I won't be making money farming.

-- SM Steve (Unreal@home.com), August 06, 2002.