The U.S. Geological Survey is planning to use $15.2 million of its American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds to upgrade volcano monitoring and the analysis and distribution of eruption information at the five volcano observatories that cover Wyoming, Alaska, Hawaii, the Northwest, California, as well as the network that covers the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands.
The Northern Marianas, an island archipelago in the western Pacific, contains some of the United States’ most active explosive volcanoes.
They threaten not only international air and shipping routes, but also the CMNI’s main island of Saipan and the U.S. territory of Guam.
A large eruption in the 1980s required the evacuation of the northern islands, and former residents cannot return because of inadequate volcano monitoring.
Work to be conducted with ARRA funds is divided into six projects, coinciding with the six high-risk volcanic areas in the United States.
These allocations are $950,000 for the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, $7.56 million for the Alaska Volcano Observatory, $2.4 million for the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Washington state, $3.3 million for the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, $200,000 for the Long Valley Observatory in California and $800,000 for upgrading networks in the CNMI.
ARRA funds will be devoted to upgrading existing networks on two islands, Anatahan and Sarigan, to full operation, and to enhancing the monitoring of volcanic sulfur dioxide gas on Saipan, as the gas from nearby Anatahan periodically poses a health hazard there.
Alaska Volcano Observatory monitors this area, in cooperation with scientists from the Hawaii and Cascades volcano observatories.
