In our view March 6: Nurturing a Volcano

As the debate over changing Mount St. Helens from a national monument to a national park has simmered for a few years, The Columbian's stance has been simple: Nurturing trumps nomenclature. Or: Money means more than jurisdiction.

So when a 14-member congressionally impaneled committee concluded recently that Mount St. Helens should remain a national monument, we weren't so drawn to that declaration as to the accompanying wish list. The recommendations address much-needed improvements to the monument. Securing unspecified federal funds for those upgrades will do far more to protect Mount St. Helens than arguing over which agency should provide oversight.

The committee recommends new highways north to U.S. Highway 12 (from recently closed Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center) and south to state Highway 14 (from Cougar to Carson). Fortunately, the committee recommended no new roads in the 110,000-acre monument itself.

Other suggestions include overnight accommodations at Coldwater (which many people argue would disrupt low-elevation elk wintering habitat) and unspecified destination resorts in and around the monument, plus removing the monument from the Gifford Pinchot National Forest and treating it as a separate entity such as the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. But to become immersed in the federal-agency debate is to ignore the greater issue: Mount St. Helens needs more funding. The jurisdictional debate also ignores the economic elephant in the room, the one trumpeting that the current economic crisis makes increased funding highly unlikely in the near future.

Ultimately, though, a better system for taking care of Mount St. Helens must be established. That greater nurturing could occur in the national monument system. In 27 states there are more than 100 national monuments, including the Statue of Liberty, four other volcanic sites, Little Bighorn Battlefield, and (as of January) the 95-square-mile Marianas Trench, with 22 volcanic sites on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

The purpose of a national monument varies, but generally it is to protect a unique resource (in this case the site of a cataclysmic eruption), whereas national parks generally embrace fewer recreation opportunities such as hunting. The challenge in charting Mount St. Helens' future is to balance public access with environmental protection. For example, resorts and recreation could create large revenue streams for the monument, but if they threaten the sanctity of the scientific treasures, it won't be worth the new money.

The committee's work deserves respect, as does the expertise of noted authorities. Ted Stubblefield, who retired as Gifford Pinchot forest supervisor in 1999, co-authored an op-ed piece for The Columbian in October 2004. He, too, believes that changing Mount St. Helens from a monument to a national park might not be the perfect solution that everyone seeks. Stubblefield said in 2005 that the volcano should be held in greater respect and not treated by the federal government as a wayside: "The monuments are really owned by the public in a more deeply held manner, in my mind. They're like our national treasures."

Increasing funding for Mount St. Helens will be easier when the economy improves, but it's not too soon to strengthen public resolve to take better care of the volcano. Public comments can be e-mailed to shac@co.skamania.wa.us, or expressed at two public meetings: 6 p.m. March 30, Cowlitz County Commissioners Hearing Room, 207 Fourth Ave. N., Kelso; and 6 p.m. April 13, Camas Police Department Community Room, 2100 N.E. Third St., Camas. The committee will prioritize recommendations in May.