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

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

By Sandi Doughton
Seattle Times staff reporter


ELLIOT ENDO / USGS
Mount St. Helens' lava dome, seen from Johnston Ridge
Observatory early last month, is the state's biggest
single source of sulfur dioxide.

Environmentalists hooted when Ronald Reagan claimed — wrongly — that trees produce more pollution than cars.

But right now, the biggest single source of air pollution in Washington 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.

More at the Seattle Times

Scuse me Ms. Volcano, we noticed you can't have a permit to operate...

"biggest single source" tells me nothing. Exactly what percentage of the total is St. Helens responsible for?

This one is "grandfathered" in to environmental regulations. :)

How about you add in other greenhouse gases as well as from private sources such as cars and all other man-made sources. And why don't you tally in the rest of the continental US for man made pollution. To be fair, we can include all the other volcanoes in the Lower 48.

Fucking science reporting.

Why are we still not cave dwellers?

Some of us, that is.

:shrug:

the GOP uses this data to push for repealing factory emission limits and the expansion of polluting industries? I can see the talking point now: "Pollution is natural".

ie. There's a new proposition to cut either 20 or 80% of critical areas for salmon and steelhead fish.

Let's give it a tax credit!

Oh, wait, wrong site. ;)

???

I really wanna know.

I know I, for one, am DAMN SICK AND TIRED of these lazy ass volcanoes, staying dormant and lazy for years and years, collecting *MY* hard earned tax dollars while it sits there and spews hot air. Then suddenly *I'M* supposed to support this welfare queen of a mountain whenever it gets all hot=n=bothered and wants to spill lava throughout the greater puget sound area.

I'm not taking it anymore. I'm sick and tired of these asshole volcanoes. I'm tired of them living off the dole while I'm out busting my ass 40 hours a week.

I say, blow their asses up. What the hell has a volcano ever done for me, huh?

</crazy freeper rant mode>