Urban areas significantly and negatively affect aquatic habitat quality in the Mountain States. This was particularly apparent in the rapidly growing Denver/Ft. Collins, Boise, Salt Lake City, Great Falls, and Billings areas. Highway corridors along Interstates 25 and 90 in Wyoming and 76 in Colorado were implicated to be causing high to very high risk factors. In 2015, the highly urbanized I-25 corridor between Cheyenne, WY and Pueblo, CO had a population of 4.49 million people. In these cities and their surrounding suburbs, large areas of impervious surfaces (i.e. buildings, parking lots, and roads) replace natural streamside habitat, increase pollution and sedimentation, alter hydrology, and increase the demand for scarce water. [...]
