College of Forestry

Watershed Processes Group

Legacy of the Mount St. Helens 1980 eruption still defies perfect solution

A new report (Grant et al., 2017) published this summer by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) describes the complex and interrelated natural hazards—volcanic, seismic, and hydrologic—and risks associated with several options to manage the water level of Spirit Lake (https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/54429). The USFS is the agency charged with management of the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument, including an engineered outlet for Spirit Lake.