Editor's note: It was important for this op-ed by GYC's communications director Jeff Welsch to run in Boise because Idaho's capitol is also the home of J.R. Simplot's corporate headquarters.

There’s nothing like a two-headed trout to stir the imaginations of a worldwide audience.

The revelation that the J.R. Simplot Co.’s phosphate mining operation at Smoky Canyon was producing fish with such a bizarre deformity cast a spotlight on a remote region. I suppose only if we’d named one head “Kardashian” and the other “Lohan” would there have been more fascination.

Media came out of the woodwork and finally told the world what those of us living in the region have known for decades: Toxic releases of selenium are killing and deforming fish, wildlife and livestock, and Southwest Greater Yellowstone has 17 phosphate-related federal Superfund sites long overdue for cleanup.

To read the entire op-ed, click here.