Air pollution increasing in Columbia River Gorge
PORTLAND, Ore. -- Something about the wind whistling down the Columbia River Gorge defines an image of clean pristine air from the sparsely settled regions east of the Cascades.
No longer.
"It's a very polluted soup," said Bob Bachman, a meteorologist and air resource specialist with the U.S. Forest Service.
"You have very high nitrogen deposition rates," he said. "If you have a nice green yard and over-fertilize it, it turns brown and dies. That's what high levels of nitrogen deposition can do."
Deposition rates at the upper levels of the eastern gorge are as high as they are in Southern California, he said.
"Studies suggest it is getting worse," said Martha Bennett, executive director of the Columbia River Gorge Commission in White Salmon, Wash.
She said studies show visibility in the gorge, declared a national scenic area in 1986, is impaired 90 percent of the time and significantly impaired 15 percent of the time.
"It's coming into the gorge from various places depending on the time of year," she said.
The gorge, she said, acts as a giant funnel. "In the summer when there is hot weather in the desert it draws from west to east. In the winter when it's warmer in the Willamette Valley and on the coast it draws from east to west."
Indications are that the pollution comes from as far south as Eugene and as far north as Tacoma, Wash., she said, and with wintertime inversions it comes from all through the Columbia River Basin.
"Anybody producing sulfur and nitrogen east of the gorge is contributing," Bennett said.
Most of the research so far has been in the upper half of the gorge, east of Hood River.
There are concerns about the effects on the orchard and vineyard industry in the gorge, on an emerging wine grape crop, and on Indian rock art and other archaeological treasures.
"We don't know what the effect will be," she said.
Bachman said pollutants such as ammonia and acidity can gradually destroy Indian petroglyphs. Studies last winter found the acidity in fog and cloud water to be equal to that of vinegar.
"It was a real surprise," he said, explaining that high acidity combined with nitrogen deposition can cause serious soil problems.
"The problem comes from everything in the Columbia Basin that emits nitrogen," Bachman said, including trains and diesel trucks. "In the winter the air is stagnant. Everything that is emitted out there is trapped, and the only outlet is the gorge."
He said it slowly bleeds through the gorge and its very moist cloud layer.
Two substantial contributors, he said, are Portland General Electric's coal-fired generating plant at Boardman and the massive Three-mile Canyon dairy farm. "But the finger should not be pointed just at them," he added. "It's a much bigger problem."
Nor is the problem unique to the gorge, Bachman said.
"River canyons have air pollution problems no matter where they are," he said. "They funnel and channel it and it's hard to disperse it."
He said emissions at the PGE plant can be brought in line but at a high price - $100 million or so.
"Eventually they will have to control it anyway. We would like to see it done sooner rather than later," he added.
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