On the Fly Magazine: The Greater Yellowstone Fishing Resource

This is one fly, anglers never expected to cast. Ok, it’s actually not a “fly” but rather flyash. Never heard of it? This powdery substance piles up by the millions of tons behind coal-fired power plants that generate electricity for our homes.
Typically, this ashy substance heads straight to landfills. Stockpiling the waste, however, not only takes up space but also creates a potential for surface or groundwater to mix with the material and potentially leach heavy metals into our waterways. So in a unique partnership, anglers teamed up with the United States Forest Service to find a way to recycle the material.

Bridger-Teton National Forest River Ranger David Cernicek hit on the idea of casting this flyash into new vault toilets to serve boaters in the Snake River Canyon. The new restrooms were sorely needed in the canyon where the number of people floating the river now exceeds 200,000 annually. Many of these rafters and anglers use boat ramps on the national forest. But the Bridger-Teton had no money to pay for new toilets despite growing demand for such services.

”What do you need more during the day?” Cernicek asks of the often used but rarely mentioned amenity.

Cernicek decided to find private partners to fund the project. Finding a donor, however, can be tough when a
project isn’t “sexy,” Cernicek says. And bathrooms just don’t make good cover models for glossy brochures. Donors tend to prefer more photogenic subjects such as stream restoration or fish studies….

You can read the rest of this article in our print publication.
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