• EPA orders Utah to cut haze across national parks

    Ethan Miller / Getty Images

    An aerial view of sandstone formations May 2, in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah.

    AP reports -- SALT LAKE CITY -- A U.S. Environmental Protection Agency order will require two of Utah's oldest coal-fired power plants to improve control of pollution that has drastically reduced visibility across a region that includes five national parks and redrock wilderness.

    Pollution controls at a pair of PacifiCorp power plants in Emery County "do not comply with our regulations," EPA Regional Administrator James Martin wrote earlier this week in the 79-page order. He signed out the 34- and 42-year-old plants for improvement, rejecting Utah's less stringent pollution controls but upholding broader efforts by the state to reduce haze across southern Utah.

    PacifiCorp said it was already upgrading pollution controls at the Hunter and Huntington power plants and planned more improvements by 2014 that would bring them into compliance with the new requirements.

    Read the full story.

    Ethan Miller / Getty Images

    An aerial view of sandstone formations May 2, in Bryce Canyon National Park, Utah.

    Slideshow: America's national parks

    Nearly 400 national parks can be found all across America, and feature breathtaking vistas, rock formations millions of years old, and more.

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  • Yellowstone's vibrant hot springs

    Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images

    View of the 'Morning Glory' hot spring with it's unique colors caused by brown, orange and yellow algae-like bacteria that thrive in the cooling water, turning the vivid aqua-blue to a murkier greenish brown, in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, on Thursday, June 2. Yellowstone National Park was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President Grant on March 1, 1872. The park is located primarily in the U.S. state of Wyoming, though it also extends into Montana and Idaho and was the first national park in the world. It is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful Geyser.

    Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images

    View of the 'Grand Prismatic' hot spring with it's unique colors caused by brown, orange and yellow algae-like bacteria called Thermophiles, that thrive in the cooling water turning the vivid aqua-blue to a murkier greenish brown, in Yellowstone National Park on Thursday.

    Mark Ralston / AFP - Getty Images

    Tourists walk beside a hot spring and the partially frozen Yellowstone Lake at the West Thumb Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park on Thursday.

    Check out more natural wonders in our national parks slideshow.