MARAMA is cooperating with NESCAUM and the OTC to provide staff support to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast Regional Planning Organization (MANE-VU). MANE-VU is an organization of states and tribes working together to improve visibility and implement the requirements of EPA's regional haze rule.

Section 16.9A of the Clean Air Act requires the "prevention of any future, and the remedying of any existing, impairment of visibility in Class I areas which impairment results from manmade air pollution."

Class I Areas

Class I areas are national parks exceeding 6000 acres, wilderness areas and national memorial parks exceeding 5000 acres, and all international parks in existence on August 7, 1977.  There are 156 Class I areas in the U.S., including seven in the MANE-VU region:

• Acadia National Park

• Brigantine Wilderness
  (a unit of the Edwin B. Forsythe National Wildlife Refuge)

• Great Gulf Wilderness Area

• Lye Brook Wilderness Area

• Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge

• Presidential Range-Dry River Wilderness Area

• Roosevelt-Campobello International Park

For more information on visibility trends in all U.S. Class I areas, see EPA’s Visibility Website.

Visibility Quiz

Q&A from the 2001 MANE-VU Communications Meeting in Philadelphia, PA 
January 9-10, 2005 (Adobe Acrobat® format)

Regional Organizations

States and Tribes formed the following regional planning organizations (RPOs) to help them prepare plans to reduce regional haze and consult and cooperate with each other.

Central States Regional Air Partnership (CENRAP)

Mid-Atlantic Northeast Visibility Union (MANE-VU)

• MANE-VU members

Midwest Regional Planning Organization (a program of the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium—LADCO)

Visibility Improvement State and Tribal Association of the Southeast (VISTAS)

Western Regional Air Partnership (WRAP)