I live in Wilson and am an avid skier and hiker. I also volunteer at String Lake in the summer. I grew up in a lakeside, resort community in the Northeast and spent my childhood in or on some form of water.
Clean water is our Valley’s most important natural resource and, for years, I took it for granted. Although I’d seen an increasing proliferation of algae in our surface waterways, it was a complete shock to me when I first saw the signs along Fish Creek warning against float tubing due to E.coli contamination. It was only through the advocacy of POWJH that those signs appeared. Research now shows that human sewage contributes nearly half of the identifiable fecal bacteria in Fish Creek and nearly a third in Flat Creek.
I joined POWJH because it has the interests of the entire Jackson Hole community at heart – clean water, for all, to drink and recreate in. I witnessed firsthand how under-regulation of septic systems and agricultural runoff in my childhood hometown led to algal blooms, fish kills, and the eventual demise of a once vibrant aquatic ecosystem. I hope to help POWJH prevent the same from happening here in Jackson Hole.