As noxious clouds of gases continue to billow from the Kilauea volcano, Big Island residents must confront a disturbing possibility: This could go on for a long time.

The dramatic increase in vog emissions from the opening of a second vent, at Halema'uma'u in March, has prompted local, state and federal officials to start crafting strategies to deal with this unpredictable threat.

Considering the health and economic impacts, the situation warrants a broad and aggressive approach. Any plan must include alleviating the immediate pain, and figuring out how to cope with the long-term increase in pollutants in the air and on the ground.

Sustained emissions of this magnitude are rare; since 1924, only three eruptions at Halema'uma'u have lasted longer than a month. Since March 23, huge amounts of particulates and sulfur dioxide that make up vog have been entering the atmosphere at up to 200 times the normal rate. Sulfur dioxide can cause serious harm to those with respiratory ailments such as asthma, emphysema and bronchitis.

There's also an economic factor: Vog poses a threat to dozens of small and large farms in its path. Especially affected are those who raise flowering plants; 11 farms raising protea report severe damage to 93 percent of their total acreage.

No one really knows what it means to live with such high levels of vog for an extended period. But we need to find out, and the sooner the better.

Health experts must establish if prolonged exposure to vog poses a respiratory threat to healthy people; the current research is inconclusive.

Agronomists must determine if other important agricultural products, such as coffee, macadamia nuts and cattle, could eventually suffer.

But proper research and development takes time and can't be rushed. In the meantime, public officials should take immediate action to help where they can.

Some sensible steps have already been taken: Thirteen sulfur dioxide monitors have been installed in key parts of the Big Island, and all schools will receive monitors as well.

The next step is a broad educational campaign wherever the vog reaches — from the resorts in Kona, to the remotest areas of the southwestern Big Island, to the other islands — to teach people how to protect their health when the vog comes rolling in.

University of Hawai'i researchers are already testing products and techniques for minimizing the effects of vog's toxic effects on plants.

Their findings should be broadly distributed as quickly as is practical. But more immediately, officials can expand access to water supplies so farmers can wash off particulates that accumulate on their crops.

There are no easy solutions; an active volcano can't simply be turned off. We can only learn to live with its effects, and hope it will always be possible to do so.