Sulfur dioxide at PTA

There's been a lot of volcanic activity on the Big Island, and it's affecting operations at the Army's Pohakuloa Training Area.

A coworker had to go over there recently, and described how the Army is dealing with the high levels of sulfur dioxide. He said they've instituted a system to gauge the level of SO₂ in the atmosphere, from 1 to 5. At level 3, he said, they don gas masks.

This would sound like a good plan, but for one problem. Gas masks don't filter sulfur dioxide. They're not designed for that, and even if they were, there wouldn't be enough filters to last longer than a few hours.

But that's OK, because the one day the meter reached Level 3, the staff there said they'll just wait another hour for another reading. At any rate, "they hadn't heard from higher that they had to do it."

This sounds just like a classic case of the Army. We institute a system to look like we're dealing with a problem, then ignore it unless we're forced to obey it.