Pollution in the backcountry

[olyclimber]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/352814_parkpollute27.html

 

wow, this is sad, whatever the source is of the pollution.

[rob]

 

this makes me want to tear shit up

[marylou]

Yeah, we've known about this for a while now. Another place that's full of pollution is that Green/Berdeen area by Hagen/Bacon/Blum in the western north Cascades. It's pretty heartbreaking.

[sweatinoutliquor]

You can run, but you can't hide (from atmospheric deposition)! I used to live on the east coast and the mercury levels in fish there were alarmingly high. There were always warnings not to eat more than one fish you caught per month, and not at all if you were pregnant, etc. Sad for sure.

[goatboy]

In related news: MORE BAD NEWS FOR FISH

[Kat_Roslyn]

They should just make those places nuclear waste dumps anyway.

[chirp]

Pretty fucking sad. I'm closer than ever to that handgun purchase, not sure what i'll use it for but I am sure it will be in the defense of something.

[Dannible]

Yeah, who cares about all these places that only a few people ever go to anyway? If god wants it clean he wouldn't have put the chemicals there in the first place, jeeze.

[Kat_Roslyn]

So, are the streams they are taking the fish samples from reintroduced with fish? Would one of the Trailblazers know?

[Maine-iac]

It is actually becoming quite the problem. I happen to like fish, and now when its hot out i turn dark red, and the opposite happens when im cold. Damn mercury. At least i dont live in LA and eat the fist there.

[Maine-iac]

This article is interesting, its about America's National Parks

 

http://www.npca.org/what_we_do/visitor_experience/clear_air/code_red/

 

[Kat_Roslyn]

I guess that M-80 I threw in Colchuck Lake trying to blow a hole in the ice didn't help much.

[Peter_Puget]

From the article in the first post:

 

"the choices we make today can have long-lasting consequences."

makes you think...

[Kat_Roslyn]

Cause the M-80 was a frikkin dud!!!

[Coldfinger]

Cause the M-80 was a frikkin dud!!!

 

Like its owner! You been tested for Mercury yet?

[murraysovereign]

We've known about this for quite a while up on this side of the line, too. Fish in Bow Lake and Lake Louise - to name a couple of prominent examples - are not fit to eat. Seems that airborne pollutants precipitate out as snow, which melts into lakes that stay so cold the chemicals never re-evaporate and move on. So they just keep accumulating. Ultimately it all ends up in the Arctic, depriving the Innu of their traditional foods because seal and beluga flesh is poisoned by chemicals that originated in industrial areas thousands of miles away. Mothers in some areas of the Arctic are cautioned against breast-feeding their children because their own bodies are toxic.

 

And some people think old balloons in the backcountry are a problem...

[marylou]

So, are the streams they are taking the fish samples from reintroduced with fish? Would one of the Trailblazers know?

 

I don't know the exact origin of the exact fish they took samples from, but I can tell you that the fish in our high lakes are either stocked or the descendants of stocked fish. The high lakes here didn't originally have fish in them.

 

As I mentioned upthread, they have found heavy metals in high concentrations in fish in the Hagen/Bacon/Blum area. There was a Draft EIS written a few years ago about whether or not to continue stocking in the Park (it is a pretty rare thing in the NPs at this point in time) and the information was in the EIS. BTW that decision has still not been issued by the Park. I believe that stocking is expected to continue in the few lakes in the NCNP until that decision is handed down.Right now the process is stalled due to a piece of legislation that the DEIS asks for to enable the continuation of stocking. Three possible outcomes I see on that: the legislation passes and limited stocking is premitted to continue, the legislation stays in limbo indefinietly and stocking continues, the Park makes a decision without the legislation. I don't think anyone really knows what the outcome will be.

 

Fair question, I might add, Kat, but I'm wondering what difference it makes? The fact that the fish hold these toxins does not bode well for the overall ecological health of the affected areas, the fish are just an effective way to see it.