This article appeared in the Monday, October 8, 2007 online edition of the Missoulian. A public meeting to present the study information mentioned here will be held at 7 p.m. October 9 in rooms 144 A and B of the Arts and Technology Building at Flathead Valley Community College.

High in the mountain wilderness of Glacier National Park, far from the modern world’s smokestacks and industries, pristine has officially been downgraded.

Chemicals and contaminants have tainted the park’s most remote corners, with some backcountry fish so toxic they could prove dangerous to the wildlife that eats them.

Such are the stunning results of a three-year field study exploring how airborne pollutants poison national parks by filtering down out of the atmosphere.

On Tuesday in Kalispell, Dixon Landers will share his findings in a presentation titled