Hawaii's Biggest Air Polluter

Forrest M. Mims III

Before departing on this annual trip several years ago, my family and I happened to be driving through a neighborhood when a contractor was burning carpets and other synthetic materials that had been ruined in a flood. The thick black cloud of pungent smoke from the fire flowed through the neighborhood, causing some residents to weep and choke. The foul smelling smoke was so thick that it caused my wife Minnie to have an asthma attack and gave my daughter Sarah and me scratchy throats and headaches.

Fortunately the fire department squelched the fire, and the contractor was warned against any further illegal burning.

Those remedies don’t apply at that remote island from where I’ve just returned. There a big land developer is hard at work, and the biggest byproduct of all the new development is major air pollution. The air is so bad that some people have had to move from the island. Some parts of the island remain very clear, but much of the island is often under a thick veil of air so polluted that visibility is sharply reduced, the horizon is blurred and sunsets are spoiled. The pollution cloud is so huge that it often drifts over nearby islands.

An important ingredient of that polluted air is sulfur dioxide, a gas that mixes with water and oxygen to form a mist of sulfuric acid. If it’s night, you know you’re in a badly polluted area when your throat feels scratchy and you begin to cough.

So far no one has been able to get the land developer to stop its pollution. The Federal government has lots of rules, but the land developer is much too powerful for mere government bureaucrats. The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has done absolutely nothing to put an end to the problem. About all that the government scientists can do is watch the land developer’s new projects and measure the pollution they cause.

The local government ignores the air pollution and even provides free advertising for the land developer. The local tourist industry loves the land developer, too, because it attracts thousands of tourists who spend enormous amounts of money during their visits. Wouldn’t you like to visit an erupting volcano?

Yes, Hawaii's polluting land developer is the active volcanic vent on the slope of Kilauea, one of five volcanoes on the Big Island of Hawaii. Hawaiian volcanoes erupt much more gently than explosive volcanoes like Mount St. Helens and Mount Pinatubo. Yet even a “gentle” volcanic eruption is awe-inspiring. It’s a humbling experience to watch liquid rock that has flowed miles from its source pour into the ocean and create totally new land.

When the molten lava hits the water, it produces a huge plume of acidic steam that rises several hundred meters and from which falls a mist laden with bits of volcanic glass and hydrochloric acid.

Once the wind blew the cloud over where I was hiking. The mist falling from it tasted a bit like lemonade.

The steam cloud causes far less air pollution than the lava itself, which emits vast quantities of sulfur dioxide gas. The gas reduces visibility only after it reaches moist air and forms tiny particles that attract water vapor. As the particles gradually grow in size, they scatter light more efficiently. Eventually the sky is covered by a thick veil of gray. Hawaiians call the end product a volcanic fog or vog for short. On especially voggy days, the stuff looks just like smoke drifting through the lava and the palm trees.

Don’t let the vog dampen your enthusiasm about visiting Hawaii. There may be no place on Earth with such a diverse and beautiful variety of landscapes, plants, flowers and fish. Hawaii even features the world’s largest mountain, the mighty Mauna Loa.

I do research high on it slopes, but I’ve not been at Mauna Loa during one of its famous eruptions. I have been there when snow covered the desolate black lava and layers of yellow dust from the Gobi Desert floating by on their way to North America. I’ve measured those Asian dust clouds from Mauna Loa and from my site along Geronimo Creek in Texas.

Yes, the vog is a nuisance. But the opportunity to see what causes it is worth the trade. Just consider the vog a reminder that the Earth is not merely a pile of rocks floating through space. It’s a dynamic system able to replenish itself and riding in a precise orbit about the very stable star that we call the Sun.

Forrest M. Mims III and his science are featured online at www.forrestmims.org and www.sunandsky.org.