JH News & Guide, August 1, 2018
Hoback folks avoid drinking their well water
Nitrate concentrations in the drinking water are at the line of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s safe drinking-water standard.
Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality Engineer James Brough, a water-quality specialist, said that nitrate pollution typically stems from agriculture, an unlikely culprit in a community where cropland is limited to hay fields and livestock to a few horses. “I think the Hoback Junction case may be a combination of some lack of oversight in the past,” Brough said, “and a high-density of septic systems for the area.”
JH News & Guide, August 31, 2016
Lodge sewage not up to snuff
Brooks Lake records are lacking; E. coli readings are off the chart
More often than not over the past decade the operators of Brooks Lake Lodge have not turned in water quality data. At times, when monitoring reports containing water quality data have been submitted, there have been shockingly noncompliant levels of some pollutants.
Read MoreScientific American, June 30, 2016
Wastewater is Key to Reducing Nitrogen Pollution
Upgrading wastewater treatment plants can dramatically reduce a municipality’s nitrogen footprint
Upgrading wastewater treatment facilities as well as household septic systems can be expensive, but such measures can dramatically return bodies of water to health.
Read MoreJH News & Guide, June 29, 2016
Investigators wonder what’s fouling Brooks Lake
Algae turns water pea green in summer; fish are struggling
An explosion of algae growth fed by an excess of nitrogen turns Brooks Lake’s waters green late in the summers. The two primary game fish that swim its waters are either unusually skinny and getting skinnier or barely reproducing and on a track toward disappearing.
Read MoreJH News & Guide, April 1, 2015
Study to target Fish Creek
Research will determine the sources of nitrogen, phosphorus pollution
Friends of Fish Creek met with a diverse group of west bank stakeholders to discuss a study that will be conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. The study will be confined to identifying volumes and sources of nutrients — primarily nitrogen and phosphorus — that are introduced into the Fish Creek watershed and promote unnatural levels of aquatic vegetation.