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["Toni Hawryluk" <tonihawr AT msn.com>]

excerpt :

The irony of being surpassed by a volcano on the state's pollution source 
list .....



http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002105397_volcano01m.html<http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002105397_volcano01m.html>

 

Mount St. Helens the state's No. 1 air polluter 

By Sandi Doughton<mailto:sdoughton AT seattletimes.com>
Seattle Times staff reporter

 

Right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington State 
isn't a power plant, pulp mill, or anything else created by man. 

 

It's a volcano. 

 

Since Mount St. Helens started erupting in early October, it has been pumping 
out between 50 and 250 tons a day of sulfur dioxide, the lung-stinging gas 
that causes acid rain and contributes to haze. 

 

Those emissions are so high that if the volcano was a new factory, it 
probably couldn't get a permit to operate, said Clint Bowman, an atmospheric 
physicist for the Washington Department of Ecology. 

 

All of the state's industries combined produce about 120 tons a day of the 
noxious gas. 

 

The volcano has even pulled ahead of the coal-fired power plant near 
Centralia that is normally the state's top air polluter. In the mid-1990s, 
when the facility's emission rate was about 200 tons a day, regulators 
pressed for $250 million in pollution controls to bring it down to today's 
level of 27 tons. 

 

Government doesn't wield much power over a volcano, though. 

 

Because the area around St. Helens is so sparsely populated, officials say 
they haven't heard complaints about respiratory problems linked to the 
emissions. But if the volcano were right next to Seattle or Portland, some of 
the most sensitive residents would probably feel the effects, said Bob 
Elliott, executive director of the Southwest Clean Air Agency in Vancouver. 

 

"We are very fortunate, in terms of the impact on human health, that Mount 
St. Helens is pretty remote." 

 

Italy's Mount Etna can produce 100 times more sulfur dioxide than Mount St. 
Helens - and sits in the middle of a heavily populated area. The volcano 
spawns acid rain and a type of bluish smog that volcanologists call vog, 
which can affect large swaths of Europe, said Terry Gerlach, a U.S. 
Geological Survey scientist who studies volcanic gases. 

 

Kilauea Volcano on Hawaii's Big Island churns out 2,000 tons a day of sulfur 
dioxide when it's erupting, creating an acid fog that damages local crops. 
The 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blew out so much of 
the gas that the resulting haze spread around the globe and lowered average 
surface temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere by nearly one degree. 

Some localized impacts are probably occurring on a much smaller scale near 
St. Helens' crater, Gerlach said. 

 

"If you were to go and collect rainwater just downwind of the volcano, I 
suspect you would see some acid rain." 

 

Worldwide, sulfur dioxide emissions from volcanoes add up to about 15 million 
tons a year, compared to the 200 million tons produced by power plants and 
other human activities. 

 

While the fraction due to volcanoes is small, it can have an impact, Gerlach 
said. 

 

"You can't call it trivial, compared with human activity." 

 

Volcanic gases bubble out of magma as it rises to the surface, and the amount 
and type of emissions depend on the chemical makeup of the molten rock. In 
addition to sulfur dioxide, volcanoes also release smaller amounts of other 
noxious gases, including hydrogen sulfide and hydrogen chloride. 

 

And they churn out large quantities of carbon dioxide. Though not considered 
an air pollutant, carbon dioxide is the so-called greenhouse gas that's 
primarily blamed for global warming. 

 

Compared to man-made sources, though, volcanoes' contribution to climate 
change is minuscule, Gerlach said. 

Mount St. Helens produces between 500 and 1,000 tons a day of carbon dioxide, 
he estimates. 

 

Nothstein, of the state energy office, says the Centralia coal plant puts out 
about 28,000 tons a day. Statewide, automobiles, industries, and residential 
and business heating systems emit nearly 10 times that amount. 

 

On a global scale, the difference is even more dramatic, said Gerlach, who 
often gets calls from power-plant operators and oil-company executives who 
believe nature is just as responsible for global warming as man. His answer 
always disappoints them. 

"I tell them the amounts don't even come close and I usually never hear from 
them again." 

 

Worldwide, people and their activities pump 26 billion tons of carbon dioxide 
into the atmosphere, he said. The total from volcanoes is about 200 million 
tons a year - or less than 1 percent of the man-made emissions. 

 

The irony of being surpassed by a volcano on the state's pollution source 
list hasn't escaped the folks at the Centralia power plant, owned by the 
Canadian firm TransAlta. 

 

"I hope they're going to call Mother Nature and have her put some scrubbers 
on there," joked company spokesman Richard DeBolt. 

In a way, that will happen, said Bowman, the Ecology Department atmospheric 
scientist. 

 

As wet winter storms sweep through the area, the rainwater acts as a natural 
scrubber, washing the sulfur dioxide from the air. 

And once the volcano stops erupting, the gas emissions will vaporize - but 
geologists say the current lava flows could continue for months, or even 
years. 

 

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491