Bless you

MAT-SU — If your eyes are watering and you’re having trouble cleaning all that green-tinged white powder off your car’s windshield, blame the trees.

Pollen season is in full swing.

Numerous calls to just about every scientific agency dealing with trees and plants in the Valley, and even at state offices in Anchorage and Juneau, failed to get a read on just how much pollen is in the Valley air, or even if there’s anyone tracking those numbers.

Judging by Anchorage numbers, though, the month of May saw wild swings in the amount of birch, alder and spruce pollen in the air. The latest count had 1,106 grains per cubic meter of air, according to the municipality’s website. Most of that was birch. In Fairbanks, the Tanana Valley Clinic tracks pollen. As of Thursday, its levels were about 756 grains per cubic meter of air, though that seems to be down from much higher numbers earlier in the year.

“I think Fairbanks is probably a little bit ahead of us in terms of progressing into summer,” said Steve Morris, who manages the Anchorage’s Air Quality Program.

He said pollen counts have been a popular addition to the municipality’s website.

“We get a lot of calls about it,” he said. “I guess a lot of people suffer from allergies. Including me.”

Morris thinks the counts probably help allergy sufferers decide where to spend their time — if maybe birch trees should be avoided or if they should wait a week before spending lots of time outdoors.

As for whether this year has produced a bumper crop of pollen, Morris said it certainly seems there’s more in the air this year than last. But there isn’t enough data to say if this is unusual.

“We haven’t done it probably enough years to know if this is a spectacular year,” he said.

Anecdotal accounts from people who have sought out allergy medications at big-box Valley retailers seem to indicate that help isn’t as easy to find as it used to be.

Over at Geneva Woods Pharmacy, the picture is a little different.

“I talked to our pharmacist and she said she hasn’t really seen a huge increase on allergy medications. She said that it’s slight, but no real big significant increase,” said David Johnston with the pharmacy. “On the other hand, we do asthma medications and stuff like that and there’s been a little bit of an increase in that.”

He said the clinic has a number of resources to combat seasonal summer maladies.

“We offer free asthma education for people that are suffering from asthma to learn how to control it better,” he said, adding, “We do natural bug bite relief creams and stuff like that that are all organic and natural.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.