Should monitor dust, he says

Earlier this year environmental activists won a victory when a federal judge ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to move forward with a review of whether wolverines should be listed as a threatened species.

Years ago the Service had proposed such a rule but withdrew it after stating that existing scientific information was insufficient to enact federal protection.

Now the Service is saying that they are expecting to receive new data on climate change that will guide their decision on whether to have them listed as threatened.

Environmentalists believe that as a result of global warming the available habitat for this animal will continue to shrink.

Both sides repeatedly use the word science.

I don’t know how the Service will stop global warming but there is scientific data that shows how they can reduce the speed of snow melt.

According to the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies in Silverton, Colorado (a center that receives federal funding) “dust landing on snow significantly speeds the melting of snow”.

Is there dust landing on the snow in Glacier National Park and if so how much and most importantly where is it coming from?

Interesting that neither the Park and local environmental groups like the North Fork Preservation Association propose to monitor that.

The Park says that dust is not a problem (although they have no scientific data to prove that) and besides that they simply do not have the money to put an air quality monitoring station in the northeast section of the Park, while the NFPA says that dust is not a problem (but they too have no scientific data). Maybe opposition to monitoring is based in the idea that the data collected might lead to the North Fork Road being paved.

Finding out how much dust is landing on the Glaciers and where it is coming from could slow the melting of the snow pack and help save the wolverines.

Are environmentalists going to demand the use all the scientific data available to save the wolverines habitat and slow the melting of the glaciers or are they going to continue to ignore the damage done from the dust generated from the North Fork Road because they oppose paving?

Monitoring this problem would provide the scientific data needed to eliminate doubt and provide real and immediate benefits for the wolverines and the glaciers.

Joe Novak

Polebridge