Great Smoky Mountains National Park Air Resource Specialist is seen at the Look Rock air quality research station.   Courtesy National Park Service

The lack of regional and local vehicle traffic during the pandemic greatly reduced measurable pollution in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

This is your Hellbender weekend read, and the first in an occasional Hellbender Press series about the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the natural world

Great Smoky Mountains National Park shut down for six weeks in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Recorded emissions reductions during that period in part illustrate the role motor vehicles play in the park's vexing air-quality issues. The full cascade of effects from the pollution reductions are still being studied.

Hellbender Press interviewed park air quality specialist Jim Renfro about the marked reduction of carbon dioxide and other pollutants documented during the park closure during the pandemic, and the special scientific opportunities it presents.  He responded to the following questions via email.

Hellbender Press: You cited “several hundred tons" in pollutant reductions during an interview with WBIR of Knoxville (in 2020). What types of air pollutants does this figure include? 

KNOX NEWS: Does a motorsports park make sense for Oak Ridge?

A Knoxville real estate developer and some officials maintain a motorsports park at the Horizon Center industrial park would create jobs, tax revenues and a destination for private high-performance vehicle enthusiasts in the region. Opponents lament possible noise and light pollution and the loss and fragmentation of healthy, diverse hardwood forest and open space set aside decades ago by DOE as an environmental preserve. 

The municipal approval process has moved forward since this video was made, but here is a comprehensive argument from those who oppose the Oak Ridge motorsports park and would rather preserve the popular recreational and natural site on the far west end of Oak Ridge.

A volunteer removes invasive plants from an Oak Ridge cedar barren as part of a Tennessee Citizens for Wilderness Planning effort to keep the barren in its natural prarie state.  Anna Lawrence/Hellbender Press

Volunteers play the part of fire to maintain the native grasses and wildflowers at an Oak Ridge cedar barren

OAK RIDGE — It’s called a barren, but it’s not barren at all. It’s actually a natural Tennessee prairie, full of intricate, interlocking natural parts, from rocks and soil to plants and insects and animals.

There’s lots of life in these small remaining unique collections of grasses and conifers that are typically known, semi-colloquially, as cedar barrens. 

Many of these “barrens” have been buried beneath illegal dumping or asphalt, but remnants they are still tucked away here and there, including a small barren in Oak Ridge owned by the city and recognized by the state as a small natural area.

NYT: Interior Secretary first Native American to hold vital post

The Senate on March 16 confirmed the first Native American director of the U.S. Department of the Interior, Democratic U.S. Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico. 

ETSPJ: Hold up on Covid-era meeting law changes to ensure public accommodation

Hellbender Press takes a fundamentalist attitude when it comes to the First Amendment and unimpeded public access to information from the government and its decision-making processes. The East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists released a statement March 12 regarding public access problems with an otherwise reasonable amendment to the state open-meetings laws. The amendments were introduced at the request of the Knox County Commission, according to ETSPJ. 

Here is the press release from ETSPJ in its entirety:

“The East Tennessee Society of Professional Journalists opposes a bill sponsored by two Knoxville lawmakers, Rep. David Wright and Sen. Richard Briggs, that would create yet another exemption to the state Open Meetings Act.

NYT:  Global effort under way to protect 30 percent of the world’s remaining natural areas

The “30x30” plan, led by Britain, Costa Rica and France, aims to preserve at least 30 percent of the Earth’s remaining natural terrestrial and aquatic habitats. A convention of dozens of nations in China later this year will outline and streamline possible methods to meet this goal. Some countries want to increase the goal to 50 percent.

 One good reference point may be the lands controlled by indigenous people, who, research shows, do a remarkably good job of maintaining biodiversity in the native habitats in which they live. Their careful methods of resource extraction provide economic benefits while preserving the natural integrity of their native lands.

The U.S. is the only country aside from the Vatican to not agree to the convention’s goal, though President Joe Biden has floated a similar plan to preserve 30 percent of the country’s remaining natural areas.

Knox News: Sam Venable: Now is not the time to backslide on Pigeon River health

Good piece here on a renewed threat to the Pigeon River, which threads from North Carolina into Tennessee. Your friendly neighborhood Hellbender Press editor was a raft guide there for a while — people loved to be on that river, and it is a true environmental and economic success story.

But after years of environmental improvements to the river and accompanying economic gains, the state of North Carolina is considering relaxing standards for a nearby paper mill’s pollutants.

The state is considering loosening the discharge standards for the paper mill’s current owner. A public hearing on the matter is set for April 14.