Tuesday January 16, 2024
Business Insider —
“In a lifetime of descending rivers,” John McPhee wrote of Alaska’s Salmon River, “this was the clearest and the wildest river.”
The writer who toured the Salmon in 1975 might not recognize it today. Its clear waters have turned orange.
Located in the northwest of the state, the Salmon isn’t Alaska’s only orange river.
“At this point, we have over 75 streams that have been observed as orange,” Joshua Koch, a research hydrologist with the US Geological Survey, told Business Insider.
From the Chukchi Sea on Alaska’s west coast to the Beaufort Sea near the Canadian border, watercourses look like they’re rusting.