Chehalis ERW

PacCLEAN partnered with Organic Valley, Cascade Climate, the University of Copenhagen, and Goal 300 to conduct an enhanced weathering project on an organic dairy family farm outside Chehalis, Washington.

Enhanced weathering refers to adding volcanic rock dust to farm fields to trap CO₂ at the field and lock it away as bicarbonate in the ocean for thousands of years. The volcanic dust in the soil reacts with CO₂ in rainwater and mineralizes the CO₂ into carbonate and bicarbonate minerals in the water. The water that flows away from the field carries the carbonates and bicarbonates to the ocean, where they are stably sequestered for ten thousand years.

In our Chehalis project, we used grant funding generously provided by Organic Valley and Cascade Climate to test a new way of measuring this process, using innovative in-ground meters that measure the water chemistry as it leaves the root zone. The project was conducted in 2025-26, and the research findings will be published in an academic paper in 2027.