Concerns about degrading visibility and increasing air pollution have been growing over the past few years, especially in southwest Wyoming. Recent studies have shown that lakes in the Rocky Mountains are relatively uncontaminated compared to many other high-elevation lakes in the world, but monitoring conducted by the USFS over the last 10 years has indicated that some alpine lakes in southwest Wyoming may be very sensitive to nitrogen saturation at very low levels of deposition. I wilderness areas, a clear violation of the Clean Air Act's provisions for Class I Area protection. Also, the EPA is working on a rulemaking for Regional Haze management which will include more stringent air quality emission control requirements.
Contacts continue between all participants in the project.
A progress report has been prepared and is almost completed at the present time. Both meetings went very well. All were present at the Dec. meeting - held at the Cheyenne WY BLM offices. We continue to develop our collaboration with the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, particularly with M. Lunden. The latter was intended to provide a set of observations and a data base of baseline conditions of natural ecosystems in remote areas of the western United States.