“Booms and busts are pretty normal,” said Miller, a fisheries biologist with Game and Fish. “We’ve seen big rises and falls on rivers like the Snake. But on smaller streams like this, they’re at least relatively consistent. I haven’t seen anything this dramatic.” Fish Creek is a well-known trout stream in Jackson Hole. The creek is one of only two free-flowing streams in Jackson Hole that the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality has deemed “impaired” for elevated levels of E. coli, a bacteria that indicates the water is polluted with poop. Signs have gone up warning swimmers not to float the popular stretch. Now, the Wyoming DEQ is proposing to list Fish Creek as “impaired” by another pollutant: nitrogen and phosphorous-based nutrients that can help plants and algae grow but change a stream’s biology.
Fish Creek’s cutthroat trout are disappearing. Is nutrient pollution to blame?
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