Haze over Grand Canyon to Improve?

[Eric Leppanen]

FYI for those of you who photograph in the southwest U.S.: a major 1,580 megawatt coal-fired power plant affecting air quality in the Grand Canyon area will shut down next week (apparently the utility is shutting the entire plant down, although according to this article:

www.grandcanyontrust.org/programs/air/mohave.php

the plant is not legally required to shut down entirely until April).

This is of course only one source of air pollution in the area (I know there is a smaller plant outside of Page, Arizona that generates a bunch of junk). But maybe it's not too much to hope for at least some reduction in the haze that obscures this area each year!

[Joseph Dickerson]

Hayduke lives!

[Jim Rhoades]

Sad, but if they used a high grade coal and the right scrubbers, etc. it could have been very clean. The TVA runs very clean burning plants but if you cross the river, Ohio is on a mission to kill every tree in the Adirondacks. I was last at the Grand Canyon three years ago. Even with a cold, strong winter wind it was very hazy. I live just a few hours from the Adirondacks. What I've seen in my lifetime leads me to believe that in another 50 years there won't be any trees there left to hug.

[JD Rose]

Hello,

Unfortunately, according to Park Service much of the high altitude light dispersion is due to pollution from China and Las Vegas. I don't think that is going to change anytime soon.

Your best bet is to get out right after a winter storm. That tends to give you some nice blue for a day or two.

--- JDR

[Duane Polcou]

As Theodore Roosevelt said of the Grand Canyon:

"Leave it for your children, and your children's children, as the one great sight every American should see"

I guess back in Teddy's time no one could predict that in less than a century the greatest concentration of internal combustion engines in the world would operate just a couple of hundred miles southwest (LA) of the point where he gave that infamous speech, and that Las Vegas , not yet even in existence, would be hell bent on duplicating California's growth curve.

Even though I am a willingly guilty contributor (i.e., I drive all the time), it is sad indeed that one of the most significant legacies of the 20th and 21st centuries will be our almost reckless destruction of the atmosphere. But a truly believe much of it is correctable (although I am no atmoshperic physicist)..

I always lamented the "death" of Glen Canyon under Lake Powell, but the lowering of water levels due to prolonged drought has revelealed a wonderful canyon on it's way to healing faster than anyone could have predicted. Nature has a more willful agenda than humans. Some day all fossil fuel will be gone. So maybe we should make some photos of the hazy canyon so our children, and our children's children can say
"My God! How could they have lived like that?"

[Neal Shields]

Today's New York Times goes into to detail on this. Page 8.

They don't however, get into the Federal Law (that Bush tried to change) that mandates all or nothing improvements. I.E. if you can get 80% improvement from 20% of the cost of meeting new construction standards, you are prohibited from doing that.

There are indians without electricty or running water that seem a little put out that people living in high rise luxury apartments in New York are making decisions for them

[robc]

Within 50 years oil will be such a scarce commodity you won't be going anywhere to do your photography anyway. You better make sure you live close enough to all amenities you might want to use, not that they will be able to function due to lack of oil supplies.