New Life Under the Volcano

By Paul A. Witteman/Mount St. Helens

In the seven years since Mount St. Helens exploded in a spume of gas, ash and pumice, there have been 24 additional eruptions at the volatile peak in the Cascade Range. The last, a small explosive belch of magma that added 85 ft. to the height of the lava dome inside the crater, occurred eight months ago. As a result, the U.S. Forest Service, cautious guardian of the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, has decided to let the general public have a closer look at a postvolcanic environment. Since early May, some 100 climbers a day have been issued permits to slog across solidified mudflows, or lahars, and up through snowfields to the lip of the crater.

What they observe is nothing less than a landscape being reborn. Nature is laboring mightily to transform the scoured flanks of the mountain, its debris- filled river systems and chemically polluted ponds and lakes into a facsimile of the sylvan setting that existed before the eruption. To the untutored eye, the evidence of devastation still seems overwhelming. Scientists, however, see a glass filling itself up slowly but surely. Says James MacMahon, head of the biology department at Utah State University: "It's not a forest yet, but the rate of progress is amazing."

That progress encompasses both flora and fauna. Inside the boundaries of the monument, where by law people are not allowed to assist regeneration, a mammalian equivalent of the bulldozer has been the pocket gopher. Colonies of these tiny industrious burrowers have helped mix the nutrient-poor ash and pumice with rich, pre-eruptive soil, creating a more hospitable turf for windblown seeds. Deer mice, ants and beetles have also assisted in the regeneration of the soil. Flowering lupine, with root nodules that convert nitrogen into compounds necessary for plant growth, has seized a foothold on the pumice plain, along with the ubiquitous fireweed and timothy grass.

Farther from the epicenter, in hummocky fields of loose volcanic ash and fine pumice pebbles, willows, red alder and an occasional Douglas fir have taken root near small ponds. At the waters' edge, Pacific tree frogs and salamanders now flourish. Large bodies of water like Spirit Lake, which was filled with organic debris and robbed of its oxygen by accompanying bacteria during the eruption, have made even more rapid recoveries. Algae, zooplankton and freshwater crustaceans have all recolonized the lake, prompting authorities from the state department of game to push for the restocking of such game fish as rainbow and brown trout.

But others oppose the plan, arguing that the volcano has provided them with an unprecedented opportunity to watch unhindered regeneration. Says Cliff Dahm, a biologist at the University of New Mexico: "It would be foolish to short-circuit nature's experiment."

Outside the monument, where nature is allowed an assist from man, recovery has been even more striking. The Weyerhaeuser Co., which lost 60,000 acres of timber when Mount St. Helens blew, finished replanting conifers last fall. In Clearwater Canyon, nine miles from the center of the blast, one-acre test plots set up in 1981 are flourishing. Douglas, noble, grand and Pacific silver firs planted by the Forest Service staff have enjoyed an almost 90% survival rate. Some are already 12 ft. tall. "The trees are growing faster than normal," says Eugene Sloniker, a Forest Service silviculturist. The impressive growth rate of these species is partly attributable to the fact that they were the first ones reintroduced. Explains Sloniker: "They have had less competition."

The reopening of the mountain worries scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey. Reason: the vulnerability of sensitive, untended monitoring equipment that provides a constant readout of the peak's vital signs. Hikers are given a handout warning that tampering with seismometers, tiltmeters and other equipment would cripple the USGS early-warning system and could lead to the reclosing of the mountain. Although geologists feel comfortable with their ability to predict the behavior of Mount St. Helens itself, they freely admit that the inner workings of the volcano are still a mystery. Says Research Geologist C. Dan Miller, who assesses volcano hazard for the USGS: "We learn as we go along. There is really no alternative to studying each volcano."

Geologists who have been monitoring Mount St. Helens' hiccups since 1980 have predicted all but one volcanic event and believe they can continue to do so. As long as the volcano remains dormant, more and more people are certain to come and marvel at what Jerry Franklin, the Forest Service's chief plant ecologist, calls "the resilience of nature." Since the $5.3 million Mount St. Helens visitor center opened in nearby Silver Lake last December, more than 150,000 people have paraded through its exhibits. Now they can see the mountain for themselves. "We've got quite a way to go yet," says Franklin. "We're 10% along the way. In another hundred years, we'll have a canopied forest."