Shenandoah: park on the brink - Shenandoah National Park, Virginia - Cover Story

American Forests, Nov-Dec, 1994 by Ned Burks

EVEN TO FREQUENT VISITORS Shenandoah National Park looks pretty much like it always has, with its dense canopy of forest, its craggy peaks, its tumbling waterfalls, and its breathtaking overlooks. As fall moves over the Virginia mountains, the leaves metamorphose into a splendid tableu of brilliant colors: ribbons of yellow poplar running through stands of deep green hemlock and pine, red oak and scarlet sugar maple blazing against blue sky, flame orange hickory glistening in the sun.

But despite outward appearances, Shenandoah is sick. Superintendent Bill Wade compares it to an AIDS victim. Weakened by severe air pollution, insect infestations, and the corrosive effects of acid rain, the park's defenses are down, And the symptoms are getting harder to ignore.

Wade now says categorically that Shenandoah is one of America's most threatened national parks. "We have the worst air quality of any national park," he says. "And it's our job as protectors of the resources to do something about that."

Many Problems, Little Money

Shenandoah is 300 square miles of mountain forest soaring to elevations over 4,000 feet. Straddling the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains for 80 miles, it often majestic views of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. A prime example of southern Appalachian hardwood forest, the 58-year-old national park is home to hundreds of miles of hiking trails, 80 varieties of flowering plants, 5,000 deer, and at least 300 black bears. Its major attraction: 105-mile Skyline Drive, the gently curving road that traces the backbone of the mountains and links the park to the Blue Ridge Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park beyond.

The park is under severe environmental stress. Acid rain from power plants and factories as far away as Illinois slowly poisons its streams with high concentrations of sulfates. Ozone and other airborne pollutants stress trees, weakening their natural defenses against disease, drought, and insect blights. Panoramic views are often obscured by a blanket of haze. The air is so bad on some summer days that health advisories are posted at entrances.

Ballooning federal deficits also are taking their toll. Buildings and equipment are showing their age. Roofs leak, radios don't work, and broken vehicles go unrepaired. Inadequate budgets have contributed to a $12 million maintenance backlog and a $2.5 million deficit in equipment replacement funds, and many seasonal and full-time positions remain unfilled. Employee morale is low and visitors complain about reduced services. One large campground has been closed indefinitely to save money. Ranger-led hikes and interpretive talks have been cut, and efforts to catch poachers have been scaled back.

Inadequate funding forces Wade to make difficult choices, and though they have earned him many friends in the environmental movement, they have also made him powerful enemies. A tough, outspoken careerist who sees his primary responsibility as protecting Shenandoah's besieged natural resources, the 53-year-old superintendent has run afoul of politicians, businessmen, and Virginia's electric-power industry.

What Wade is up against is best illustrated by the storm of protest that greeted his proposal to close portions of Skyline Drive during the first half of 1993. He intended to redirect the money to his natural resources, visitor services, and law-enforcement divisions. But businessmen in Front Royal, a gateway community at the park's northern end, protested to their congressional representatives, who persuaded Wade's Park Service superiors to overturn his decision and keep the road open.

Though the tourist industry tends to take a short-term view, Wade says he is obligated to take the longer view. If the park's natural features aren't protected, there won't be much left for tourists to come and see, he says. The controversy "really called attention to the problems here and in other parks. Some people still don't like the choices we have to make, but there have to be tradeoffs, and they're starting to understand that."

Dirty Air

Almost all the park's two million annual visitors travel Skyline Drive; 90 percent rarely wander far from their cars. They stop at the overlooks, idling their engines as they read signs describing Shenandoah's ruggedly scenic terrain: Hogback, Little Devil Stairs, Old Rag, Hawksbill, Panorama. Jammed along the narrow road, the cars and motorhomes add to the miasmic summer haze that cloaks the hills.

Skyline Drive makes the park wonderfully accessible. Even the most out-of-shape Sunday driver is rewarded with spectacular views of pasture-quilted valleys and endless ridgelines of mountains rolling off toward the far horizon. But tiny particles of sulfates and nitrates, produced primarily by coal-burning power plants, hang in the air, transforming the age-old bluish hue that gave these mountains their name (a tint caused by organic transpiration in the heavy forest cover) into an unnatural white and gray haze. Nitrous oxides from motor exhaust add a brownish-yellow tinge to the smog, and high summer humidity exacerbates the problem.