The Forest Service is ready to get moving on a big project at Mount St. Helens

Aug. 31 is the deadline to respond to a public questionnaire about changes to the way Spirit Lake is managed

Pretty, tricky: The waters of Spirit Lake near Mount St. Helens have been in the spotlight for parts of five decades. Photo: Public domain

By Kendra Chamberlain. August 28, 2024. The United States Forest Service has begun considering options for what to do with a 40-year-old tunnel built at Spirit Lake in the aftermath of the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption.

The tunnel—quite literally constructed on shaky ground—is the only thing keeping downstream communities safe from a potentially catastrophic flood from Spirit Lake, located just north of Mount St. Helens.

In 1985, the Army Corps of Engineers built a 1.6-mile-long tunnel through a nearby ridge to let the lake drain into the North Fork Toutle River.

The ridge itself is geologically active, filled with small faults and “shear zones” that have exerted pressures on the tunnel over the last four decades, requiring extensive repairs. In 2018, a report determined that the tunnel needed millions of dollars worth of repairs to avoid failure.

The Forest Service says it’s time to decide on a permanent solution for managing the lake’s water levels.

It’s a sticky situation.

As Columbia Insight has reported , the tunnel is surrounded by some of the most important—and delicate—research sites in the world, offering scientists a rare opportunity to observe and study how life returns to an area devastated by a volcanic eruption.

Graphic: USFS/Catalyst Environmental Solutions

The Forest Service has initiated what it calls “enhanced outreach” for the tunnel project, offering more opportunities for scientists, tribes, conservationists and recreationists to weigh in on how best to proceed. Stakeholders include the Spirit Lake/Toutle-Cowlitz River Collaborative , formed in 2021, a watershed-wide consortium focused on the long-term management of Spirit Lake, public safety and other issues facing the watershed.

This summer, the Forest Service released a first draft of options it’s considering for the tunnel. Proposals range from repairing the existing tunnel and adding a permanent pump station to carving out new open channels or drilling new tunnels.

The agency held a pair of virtual meetings in July outlining the options.

Whichever option is chosen, the Forest Service is likely in for a fight. When it proposed building a temporary road through multiple research plots in the Pumice Plain in 2020, researchers and conservationists roared back , hitting the agency with a multi-plaintiff lawsuit.

So how are enviros feeling about the new tunnel options?

It’s too early to say, according to Ashley Short, policy manager at Cascade Forest Conservancy, one of the plaintiffs in the Pumice Plain lawsuit.

“We’re still listening and learning at this point and won’t be able to speak to any real specifics on any alternative until we’ve seen more details,” Short told Columbia Insight .

“I can say we are committed to being a conservation voice and showing up in the planning process,” she said.

The formal scoping documents and environmental assessment are expected to be released in September.

In the meantime, the Forest Service is collecting responses to a questionnaire about the project until August 31.

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