‘It’s a change from pristine conditions’

Pollution from cars and cow waste is drifting into Colorado’s Rocky Mountain National Park, threatening the plants and animals that live there, The Denver Post reported.

What’s happening?

For decades, nitrogen and ammonia gases have wafted into the park from traffic on the front range and livestock agriculture in nearby counties. Air currents carry these pollutants to the highest elevations of this national park, where they are deposited into the landscape through rain and snow. 

If this contamination gets worse, it could wreck this delicate ecosystem, scientists told The Post — wildflowers could disappear, and algae could bloom in alpine lakes, endangering native fish.

“You’re fertilizing Rocky Mountain National Park. But you don’t really want to fertilize a national park,” Jill Baron, a research ecologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and senior research scientist at Colorado State University, told The Denver Post. “It’s a change from pristine conditions. We are not at the bright green and stinky stage yet, but we are at the beginning.”

Why is this pollution concerning?

Nitrogen and ammonia pollution are just two of the park’s numerous threats. For instance, air pollution from drilling threatens clean air and healthy ecosystems there, according to the National Parks Conservation Association.

Rising global temperatures are behind the spread of invasive grasses and pine bark beetles, the latter of which kills millions of trees, the organization says. Combined with hotter, drier temperatures, these changes are driving more wildfires in the park, it adds.

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This is bad news for the surrounding area, as 4.1 million visitors spent an estimated $569 million in local gateway regions while visiting RMNP in 2023, per the National Park Service. This spending supported 7,830 jobs, according to the agency.

Plus, it’s an inherent threat to the biodiversity of the park. Already, three of its animal species — the Canada lynx, greenback cutthroat trout, and Mexican spotted owl — are listed as endangered, per the NPS.

The park is home to 1,100 species of vascular plants, including 900 species of wildflowers, according to the agency. Two nationally threatened plant species — the Colorado butterfly plant and Utes ladies’-tresses — aren’t known to live in the park, but they are found in one of the three counties it spans with suitable habitat occurring in RMNP.

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What’s being done about pollution in the park?

According to The Denver Post article, the park has worked to improve air quality since 2004. For instance, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment have plans to reduce damaging air pollution in the park. There is also a separate initiative to address the haze that affects the park due to severe ozone pollution in the region.

Plus, cattle farmers are cooperative in efforts to reduce their impacts. For instance, producers receive alerts when an upslope storm is forecasted. That can help them manage their livestock — this could include actions like delaying the cleaning of big manure piles, which kicks up ammonia, until a storm passes. 

However, the publication says that efforts to manage the problem aren’t working as fast as environmentalists had hoped. 

Across the U.S., other national parks, from the Grand Canyon to Acadia, protect our country’s natural treasures, and they all face different conservation issues.

The good news is that many of them are receiving special funding to address these concerns. For instance, Grand Canyon National Park was recently awarded almost half a million dollars to fund a trash reduction program.

The U.S. National Park Foundation just received a $100 million donation from a private foundation that will help boost the country’s national parks in various ways, including protecting vulnerable species and ecosystems.

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