Yellowstone tourists blamed for ruining pristine blue thermal pool

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Tourists have been blamed for ruining the beautiful blue colour of a hot spring in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming by throwing coins and other objects into the water.

Morning Glory Pool, located in the Yellowstone Upper Geyser Basin in the United States, has attracted visitors ever since the national park was established in the late 1800s due to its crystal-clear blue colour.

The pool got its name because of its resemblance to the blue Morning Glory flower, but the spring hardly bears any similarities to the plant after years of slowly turning into a pit of orange-yellow rust-like colour with a green-hued centre.

The National Park Service (NPS) said that the pool became the “victim of vandalism” as it grew in popularity. Over the years, tourists have thrown coins, trash, rocks and logs into the water.

The debris that was tossed inside became embedded into the sides and vents of the spring, reducing its water circulation and its naturally hot water temperature.

The orange and yellow-coloured bacteria thrive in the pool as a result of the cooler water, slowly eroding away at the brilliant blue that the pool was once known for.

The vandalism is thought to have started over a hundred years ago, along with other geysers and pools around Yellowstone that are filled with coins, handkerchiefs and other objects.

Former Yellowstone ranger and currency park caretaker Jeff Henry told the Cowboy State Daily that he and a team had carefully fished out hundreds of objects from the Morning Glory Pool as part of a restorative initiative in 1991.

“We found tons, probably thousands of coins,” he said. “The main park road used to go right by Morning Glory, so that would account for some of the metal parts that looked like car parts chucked into the bottom of the pool.

“There were a lot of rocks that didn’t belong there, and I think we found some hats that probably had blown off people’s heads and landed in the pool. And they, wisely, didn’t try to retrieve them.”

While the objects have damaged the thermal levels of the pool, Henry said the NPS no longer makes thorough cleaning of the pools a priority due to its policy of preserving natural elements as they are if they have adapted to change.

Most of what was recovered from the Morning Glory Pool in the 1990s had been recently tossed, with anything thrown in a hundred years earlier having already embedded itself into the rock and sediment.

The NPS said that while vandalism has decreased in recent years, it still remains a problem. It asks any visitors who see vandalism occurring to report it to a park ranger. They also admit that natural changes could be cooling the water, too.

“I don’t see anywhere near as many coins in pools as I used to back in my early days in the park,” Henry told the website. “The bottoms of the more accessible springs used to be paved with coins, but now it’s pretty rare to see anything thrown into the pools.”

United States’ national parks are no stranger to tourists causing damage. In June, two people were caught on social media smashing ancient and federally protected red rock formations in a national park in Nevada.

In August, three tourists faced fines and prison time for firing paintball guns inside Joshua Tree National Park in California.

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