Forest Service Study Finds Acid Fog in Gorge

On Tuesday, when officials deliver their fifth annual report on gorge air quality to the Columbia River Gorge Commission in Hood River, Ore., their presentation will raise more questions than it answers.

Questions like: How much information is needed to know there’s a problem? What comes next? And even: What’s all this for?

The first analysis of gorge air samples collected between 2003 and 2005 won’t be ready for review until December at the earliest, said Bob Elliott, executive director of the Southwest Clean Air Agency. The small regional agency, based in Vancouver, stepped in to lead the air study after Washington and Oregon environmental agencies lost staff and money to study the causes of chronic reduced visibility in the gorge.

Haze is noticeable in the gorge at least 90 percent of the time and is severe 15 percent of the time, according to a dozen years of visibility monitoring by the Forest Service.

The regional study collected air samples at Mount Zion in the west end of the gorge, near Wishram at the east end and at Bonneville Dam in the heart of the gorge. Samples contained a range of pollutants that cause haze, including sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide. A congressional appropriation of $1.2 million enabled researchers to gather samples over two winters, the wet winter of 2003-2004 and the dry winter of 2004-2005, and to extend their monitoring last summer.

Elliot said the program is on track to produce a final air monitoring report next spring. The next phase, which begins this fall and continues through the end of 2006, will use computer modeling to identify how factors such as new federal clean diesel rules might affect gorge air quality.

Other factors that could affect air quality in the gorge include stiffer vehicle emission control requirements and scrubbers on smokestacks at a coal-fired plant in Boardman, Ore.

Acid fog

In recent months, however, a separate Forest Service study of fog that blows into the gorge from the east in winter has overshadowed the regional air sampling project.

The study was conducted by Mark Fenn of the Forest Service’s Pacific Southwest Research Station in Riverside, Calif. Over four months in the winter of 2003-2004, Fenn sampled precipitation at 11 gorge sites, including 10 sites east of Hood River, Ore. He documented three episodes of extremely acidic fog throughout the eastern gorge. Moisture collected in some samples was as acidic as in polluted East Coast cities.

The acid has the potential to change soil chemistry, damage trees and dissolve rock. Columbia Basin tribes are concerned that it could erode Native American petroglyphs and pictographs in the gorge. Already it has killed some sensitive lichen species.

High levels of nitrogen and sulfur dioxide from Portland General Electric’s coal-fired generating plant at Boardman, and ammonia from a huge dairy cattle operation nearby are believed to be major contributors to acid fog and rain. Both the coal plant and the dairy farm lie outside the national scenic area boundary. Both remain largely unregulated by the state of Oregon.

The Forest Service has urged the Gorge Commission to broaden the ongoing gorge air study, which is focused on pinpointing the sources of haze.

In a letter to the commission, Northwest Regional Forester Linda Goodman urged more attention to the threat air pollution poses to natural and cultural resources in the gorge.

"The existing gorge air quality process continues to have mixed success," she wrote. "The technical work to date has been high quality and will inform future work, but is too narrowly focused to shed much light on the complexities of the Columbia Basin as a pollutant source region. Renewed energy and focus on the gorge air quality issue is needed."

The Forest Service stands ready to help, she said.

Two years ago, Forest Service meteorologist Bob Bachman argued that the commission should consider human health in its air quality study as well.

"The health of humans and ecosystems is inseparable," he told commissioners then.

He also urged them to consider interim measures to limit new sources of pollution while their study is under way.

Elliott said it might make sense for the gorge commission to address human health issues.

The Scenic Area Act says only that the commission must "protect and enhance" air quality. Air pollution causes haze at much lower levels than the levels at which breathing difficulties or other health problems can occur.

"The right thing might be to solve both issues at the same time," Elliott said.

Who decides?

Another question Elliott intends to raise on Tuesday is what will happen in 2007, when the modeling is done and the federal money spent.

Under the work plan the Gorge Commission adopted in 2001, a 32- member citizen advisory panel representing a range of gorge interests was supposed to convene after the modeling is complete to help establish goals for improving gorge air.

But Elliot says his agency has no money to staff such a committee, and neither do the states.

That’s a problem, said Martha Bennett, the commission’s executive director. "How do you know, if the modeling tells you auto pollution is a problem, how much improvement is good enough?" she asked. "The advisory committee was going to set those goals."

Bennett said she’s not convinced the gorge commission’s study will produce the answers the public needs to protect the gorge.

"Although we will have a better understanding about the causes of haze, I don’t think we will have answered the question of how clean the air has to be to protect the resources of the gorge. That’s an economic development issue, too. A lot of the new businesses that are moving here are coming for those scenic and natural and recreational resources."

The Gorge Commission launched the air study and retains oversight. But there has been friction between the commission and the state agencies that have been doing the work.

"It makes our job more complicated," Elliott said. "It’s another organization we have to relate to in an official capacity, but they aren’t contributing funding to help pay for this work." Another option, he said, would be for state agencies to step up and fill their traditional regulatory roles when polluters are identified. "We have to make decisions about how to improve air quality on a regular basis," he said. "That’s our job. We can identify potential regulations, get public comment for 30 days, modify our regulations. We can do that."

Also still unresolved is the question of what goals will be set for improving air quality after the studies are done.

It’s possible, Elliott said, that modeling will predict significant improvement in air quality under federal and state rules that are already in effect, such as a requirement that, beginning in 2006, heavy-duty trucks and buses be built to run on low-sulfur diesel fuel. The rule is expected to remove 2.7 million tons of smog- causing nitrogen oxide from the air each year.

"I could find that air quality is going to get better, and someone could say, ‘That’s not better enough.’ Then where do we go?"

Update

Previously: Scientists gathered air samples throughout the gorge between 2003 and spring of 2005.

What’s new: The Forest Service has documented acid rain and fog in the east gorge and is pressing for an expanded air study.

What’s next: The Columbia River Gorge Commission faces tough decisions about the future of the study when it meets at the Hood River Best Western Inn on Tuesday.