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By ROBERT WELLER, Associated Press Writer
DENVER
(AP) - A dust storm that started in Mongolia and picked
up industrial pollution from China has spread a haze across
a quarter of the mainland United States, experts said Tuesday.
The
whitish haze has been seen from Calgary, Alberta, to Arizona
to Aspen, where weekend levels of particulate - matter that
reduces visibility and
can cause respiratory problems - quadrupled from the previous
weekend.
Gene
Feldman, an oceanographer from NASA's Goddard Space Flight
Center in Greenbelt, Md., said aircraft have been monitoring
matter in the dust clouds.
"At
one time, this dust cloud was bigger than Japan," he
said.
Russ
Schnell, director of observatory operations for National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder, said
the cloud will reach the East Coast, but should dissipate
in the next several days.
In late
1998, scientists claimed to have documented the spread of
industrial pollution from China to the United States, where
it caused pollution levels as high as two-thirds of federal
health limits.
"This
storm is a godsend to pollution researchers," Schnell
said. "People are finally realizing that what have
been saying for years is true. Pollution from Asia is being
carried across the oceans."
The
two experts said it was unusual for such matter to be so
visible to the naked eye. In Aspen, particulate levels measured
58 millionths of a gram per cubic meter of air, compared
with 14 millionths of a gram a week earlier.
"We
had the same kind of haze when Mount St. Helen's erupted
but the particulate didn't come down to the ground level
as much," said Lee Cassin, director of Aspen's environmental
health department.
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