Growing up in a small town in the mountains of Colorado I’ve always thought that I was isolated from pollution and the effects of industry being as remote as I was. This idea has recently been undermined by something that I had never thought about or taken into account.
A power plant on lake Powell called the Navajo Generating Station was a coal fired plant that had been generating power for much of the southwest for over 50 years. I had seen this plant my entire childhood taking trips down to Powell and knew that there was a significant amount of pollution being put into the air such as heavy metals like mercury, but never thought its effects would impact me hundreds of miles away. This was until I heard about the demolition of the coal stacks and the decommissioning of the plant.
The high alpine lakes that I had grown up fishing and swimming in were getting polluted with levels of mercury that had not been seen before. It was later discovered that the toxins being released into the air from these power plants were drifting in the air and landing on high alpine landscapes where it would be concentrated through runoff into the lakes. People may wonder why it’s such a big deal if a little bit of mercury is in these lakes but the effects can be detrimental.
Not only are these lakes popular places for people to recreate, but they are the drinking water supply for many towns and cities. I’ve been told that because we live at the top of the watershed that our water is some of the purest and least polluted water in the country but after hearing that toxins have been spewing into the ecosystem I can’t help but wonder what effects it is having on the environment.
Fracking is one of the biggest industries in Colorado and it’s also one of the dirtiest. The process used in pumping natural gas out of the ground involves thousands of gallons of toxic fluids being pumped into the ground to fracture the shale and remove the gas. This is also the same land we are pumping drinking water from and the effects of all the fracking are finally being seen. Some residents have reported that their tap water has gotten cloudy and can be set on fire. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to drink water that catches fire when you hold a match to it.
It is frustrating to think that in a place that is so wild and untouched we have managed to pollute almost the entire state from high alpine lakes to deep aquifers people rely on for drinking water. It makes you ask the question do people even care about this or is it something that only gains attention when forced to through legal action.
After interviewing some of my fellow classmates it has become clear to me that the public is not well informed about pollution in Colorado. When asked about the effects of pollution in the state almost nobody could come up with an answer that pointed to a specific issue. I found that most people I talked to were able to come up with sort of a general answer saying either the air or water gets polluted but when asked in more depth about what that actually means in terms of effects on wildlife or humans it was hard for them to relate that to a real world problem. It seems as if people know pollution is bad but don’t bother to look into it any further than having just a basic understanding that it is bad and we should avoid it.
A study from the National park service states “mercury concentrations in fish are below the EPA’s limit for what is considered safe for recreational anglers to eat. However, most fish exceed the EPA’s limit for subsistence fishing”. While this may not seem like a problem because the fish are still in allowable limits to eat the effects of these fish containing mercury could be drastic. This brings up the idea of biomagnification and how that can lead to terrible consequences.
Biomagnification is the act of toxins being concentrated further and further up the food chain due to predation. It’s caused by fish or animals eating large numbers of smaller species in the food chain. The mercury that is in the sediments and water is then absorbed by the small crustaceans and from there on it’s a matter of fish in this example eating many of those small animals that have collected the mercury in their system.
While you may think that is just limited to the biggest fish in the lake you have to account for the fact that eagles and bears prey on those fish. This is then a transport method for the mercury to leave the lake in high levels and be distributed among other species that scavenge for food.
Mercury is a neurotoxin and when ingested into your system can cause severe damage to your nervous system and can lead to birth defects and low fertility. This could spell disaster to the wildlife population around the state due to their ability to reproduce being suppressed from this toxin.
The wild is what makes Colorado so special, $3.25 billion dollars are brought to colorado through hunting and fishing every year and over 25,000 full time jobs are associated with this economy. That’s not to mention the thousands of residents that interact with public lands on a daily basis. With the pollution of our forests comes the destruction of our resources and wildlife. So much of what makes us who we are is threatened by our blatant disregard for the pollution that takes place everyday. This information should anger anyone who lives in Colorado or ever plans on visiting and enjoying everything it has to offer.
This is why I am calling for more studies to be done to determine what the effect of this problem could do to our economy and to our citizens. It’s our responsibility to protect our valuable resources and hold those accountable for the damage they have already done. Now is our time to reverse these negative effects of our dirty energy industry and protect people’s quality of life before it’s too late. The dirty coal plants and our disregard for the environment need to go if we want to have a future with wildlife being a part of it.
