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By WALTER DEVINE
Rappahannock Newi Special Writer
When Carol Rykken and her parents drove from North Dakota to visit relatives in Virginia in 1951,13year-old Carol enjoyed most the vista from the Blue Ridge, the first mountains she ever saw.
When she returned two years ago from her present home in the Colorado Rockies to visit a brother in Warrenton, she was struck by the inability to see much of anything from the Blue Ridge. In fact, much of the murky curtain she witnessed then was caused by man-made pollutants that since the early ’50s have reduced the mountains’ vista by half.
For many of us, hazy mountaintop views across the Shenandoah Valley are just something taken for granted, something the casual summertime observer might chalk up to humidity. The truth is, however, that visibility is less than half of what it once was and the pollution that obstructs the view is also slowly killing plants and driving wildlife from Shenandoah National Park, officials there say.
“It’s a problem,” says Elizabeth H. Haskell, Virginia’s secretary of natural resources. She says the state is writing “some of the toughests” regulations for permits in the country.
However, she notes, only about four percent of the pollution emanates from sources in the state. While Virginia is seeking to control new sources of pollution and tighten restrictions on existing sources, Mrs. Haskell says that “more needs to be done, and that’s why we are
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