Southwest Colorado can seem pristine: It’s home to the state’s biggest wilderness area, the Weminuche, and there isn’t a big city for hours. Yet there’s a lot of mercury in the water and soil -- some of the highest levels in the country have been measured at Mesa Verde National Park. Scientists have a theory that forest fires could be making things worse and they’re studying a reservoir in the area where a big fire burned about a decade ago. Chris Peltz joins Ryan Warner from the Mountain Studies Institute in Silverton, where he’s a research coordinator.
