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By Daniel Berger
The NFF is working with the Forest Service to develop the Mount St. Helens Institute as the famous volcano commemorates the 25th anniversary of its last big eruption.
Geologically speaking, something really big just happened in Washington State‹something that changed the shape and character of the earth and its living plants and animals for miles around it. Mount St. Helens in the southwestern corner of the state blew up, pulverizing its top 1,300 feet and thousands of acres of surrounding forest. Compared to its age of 40,000 years, the explosion, which happened a mere 25 years ago, wasn’t long ago at all. But on a different time scale, this one biological, a lot has happened in a quarter century. A landscape that turned black, dead and barren in a matter of hours has been renewed and transformed, reminiscent of its historic ecological glory, and has amazed and thrilled us ever since.
Mount St. Helens, in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and the showpiece of its eponymous volcanic monument, commemorated the 25th anniversary of its largest eruption in recent human history this May. Following that explosion, scientists watched as plants and animals returned, noting which came first and mapping how each recovered. But last fall, the focus shifted back to the mountain itself, when it began to show signs of new volcanic activity.
“It’s hard to take your eye off the mountain,” said Mary Vasse, the National Forest Foundation’s (NFF) Director of Northwest Programs. “On clear days, you can see it from downtown Portland, and from Vancouver, Washington.” The NFF has been paying extra close attention to the mountain lately, as the organization plays an instrumental role in helping to build the Mount St. Helens Institute.
The Mount St. Helens Institute (MSHI), a 501(c)(3), private, nonprofit organization, is being developed to maximize the educational, recreational and scientific research potential offered by the volcano. MSHI will enable more extensive partnerships with schools and colleges, the scientific research community and with the general public interested in the recreational and educational experiences available at the volcano. And it will do so without squeezing the Forest Service’s already tight budgets.
“There are a lot of unmet needs at Mount St. Helens,” said Tom Mulder, Forest Administrative Officer on the Gifford Pinchot National Forest. “We have limited visitor center hours. The maintenance and operations of the current visitor centers are beyond our budget and beyond what we can collect in recreation fees.”
And there are other issues as well. “We have an interest in keeping the exhibits updated,” which the Forest Service isn’t in a position to do alone, said Forest Supervisor Claire Lavendal. “The landscape changes, especially now with the recent volcanic activity. The volcanic activity brings home that this isn’t just a changing landscape, but a changing mountain as well. We need to be able to explain that”
During these early stages of MSHI’s development, the NFF is acting as the nonprofit recipient of private gifts, providing stewardship, gift processing and fiduciary oversight. The NFF is joined in its other task of working with the Forest Service to develop programs, build a new volunteer board leadership and identify financial supporters, by JS May, from the Metropolitan Group, a consulting firm that designs communications for nonprofit, public and socially conscious private sector clients.
May believes that while this type of arrangement may be new to the Forest Service, it has been part of our public culture for many years, starting with libraries and universities. “We’re helping the institute for two reasons: one, it takes dollars to move an organization from good to great. The public dollars may be adequate, but that doesn’t keep up with an institution’s full vision. And second, by engaging private donors in a process, you’re also developing a constituency that becomes an advocate on the public funding side.”
“By securing leadership and funding,” added Vasse, “we can complete the job of, among other things, bringing the mountain’s extraordinary educational opportunities to the American public in a variety of ways. That’s a bigger job than the Forest Service can, and should, take on by itself.”
The Institute has outlined four program areas it would like to develop as it grows: a docent (nature interpreter) program, a youth conservation corps, a science and research component and exhibit updates. May, Vasse, Mulder and others have crafted these ideas as part of a case statement for the Institute. They have now begun talking to prospective board members and donors.
“This is not just about the geologic or biologic science,” said Lavendal. “There is so much to learn here about living and natural communities and how we all interact with the world. The lessons learned are bigger than what the Forest Service can share alone.”
If you or anyone you know is interested in getting involved, please contact Mary Vasse at mshi@natlforests.org or by calling 503-241-0467.
To learn more, please visit http://www.mshinstitute.org/.
History of Mount St. Helens and the 1980 Eruption
Mount St. Helens is part of the Ring of Fire encircling the Pacific Ocean. It was created and is continually changing through the collision of the North American and the Juan de Fuca continental plates. Mount St. Helens erupts roughly once each century. After lying dormant for 123 years, Mount St. Helens again spewed steam and ash on March 27, 1980‹a prelude that put geologists on alert for a major volcanic event.
But what occurred on May 18, 1980, went beyond what anyone had envisioned. A 5.1 magnitude earthquake from within Mount St. Helens triggered the collapse of the mountain’s north flank, releasing the largest landslide and volcanic eruption in recorded history. This was an eruption equal in power to 500 atom bombs. As much as a cubic mile of volcanic material shot upward and sideways. The blast cloud traveled at 250 miles per hour with temperatures in excess of 600 degrees F, destroying 215 square miles of forest land. Within seconds, the trunks of thousands of 150-foot-tall old-growth Douglas firs snapped like toothpicks. Ash rained down over 22,000 square miles, blew 16 miles into the atmosphere and circled the globe in 17 days.
Although the Forest Service and local authorities had worked diligently to keep visitors away, 57 people were killed. Rock, snow and ice roared down the mountain at speeds approaching 200 miles per hour. Most large mammals on Mount St. Helens‹mountain goat, black bear and thousands of elk and deer as well as most fish, amphibians, insects and birds‹perished.
Given the relatively short perspective of 25 years, it is astounding to see how Mount St. Helens continues to transform. The past quarter century has been characterized by rebirth and renewal. Within the crater, a new lava dome began rising in 1986, rebuilding the mountain. A new glacier has established itself on the crater floor. And since early October 2004, a second lava dome has grown at a rate as high as a dump-truck load in volume every second. At this rate, scientists estimate Mount St. Helens could return to its height before the 1980 eruption of 9,393 feet in less than 200 years‹less than a blink of the eye in geologic time.
Remarkably, plant and animal life have reestablished themselves far faster than expected. Beetles were among the earliest animals to return and more than 300 kinds now flourish. Lupines were among the first plants to grow in the deep deposits of volcanic ash. Scientists learned that lupines drive the recovery by creating islands of rich nutrients that promote establishment of other plant species. Millions of new trees, elk, deer, cougar, bobcat, bear, birds and fish have also retuned to the areas so deeply devastated in 1980.
Mount St. Helens is a living laboratory. It has become the most thoroughly studied large area of both geological and ecological disturbance in the world. The lessons learned from our volcano have been shared with hundreds of millions of people around the world through scientific papers and popular articles, books and in broadcast media. Located near the regional population centers of Seattle and Portland, Mount St. Helens has also returned as a leading recreation area and visitor attraction with more than 500,000 visitors a year.
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