A Rapid Response to Fish Kills
by Neil Gillies, Cacapon Institute
Special to Moorefield Examiner
“I got an email from a fellow fisherman last night about a possible . . . fish kill on the Main Stem Shenandoah between Route 50 and Loches Landing in Virginia,” began an email from the Shenandoah Riverkeeper Jeff Kelble on November 5th. “I’m emailing in the hopes that the fish types among us will consider checking their respective rivers to see if, like this summer, the kill is spread around not only the Shenandoah but also the South Branch and Main Stem Potomac. The fish appear to have been dead at least several days so you don’t want to wait too long or the evidence will likely be gone.”
The Riverkeeper’s email was sent to over 100 people in state and federal government, universities, and non profit organizations. Many of the recipients forwarded the message on to others and, within two days of the initial fish kill report, many hundreds if not thousands of people were alerted to the possibility that there could be a problem and were “checking their respective rivers.”
This kind of rapid response to a fish kill is part of a new effort to mobilize both agency personnel and the community-at-large to help solve the problem.
Ever since a massive fish kill of suckers, fallfish, and smallmouth bass in the South Branch of the Potomac during the spring of 2002, agencies have been working to understand the environmental conditions associated with fish kills, and the pollutants that might be contributing to the problem. "Early on, the WVDEP and WVDNR were the primary agencies responding to and investigating the fish kills on the South Branch. Because of recurring kills within the South Branch and fish kills within the Shenandoah River and it's major tributaries in Virginia, local citizens, university researchers, USGS, EPA and the state of Virginia among others are now involved", said Patrick Campbell of WVDEP's Division of Water and Waste Management.
Virtually all of the people working on the fish kill problem in West Virginia and Virginia convened for a two-day meeting held at Cacapon State Park in September. It was an opportunity for the researchers to share information and compare notes. And share their frustrations, because every time they thought they might be closer to finding a possible cause, the next fish kill was different. All of the presentations and major discussions from the meeting are available for the public to read on the internet at www.wvdep.org/dwwm/fishkill.
The researchers all agreed that one key to understanding the problem is to know when and where fish kills are occurring in real time. Timing is everything. After hundreds of golden redhorse suckers died in the South Branch last May, a U.S. Geological Survey crew from the Leetown Science Center collected fish and took them to the Eastern Panhandle facility for testing. West Virginia Division of Natural Resources fishery biologist Jim Hedrick said: "They actually need fish that are in the process of dying for the results to be meaningful." (Cumberland Times-News, 5/31/2006)
An informed public can play a crucial role in helping agencies know when and where fish kills are occurring. That is one of the reasons four environmental groups created the Potomac Water Watch (PWW). PWW has created a web-based clearinghouse of information on fish kills and the anomaly known as Intersex (www.potomacwaterwatch.org/) and, in the spring, the PWW will distribute fish kill posters along affected rivers. The poster shows a picture of a smallmouth bass with a cigar-burn-like lesion that was in one of the fish kills and is being studied by USGS. The purpose of the poster is to get fishermen, boaters and others who use the rivers to report fish kills and fish with sores that they see. The poster provides two phone numbers that can be used to report problems: 800-642-3076 (West Virginia’s fish kill and pollution hot line) and 304/856-1385 (Cacapon Institute).
PWW will also be working with WVDEP and WVDNR staff over the next few months to produce both printed information and web-based forms that will make it easy for the public to report all of the information agencies need to mobilize their teams.
Margaret Janes of The Appalachian Center for the Environment and the Economy
sees hope in this approach. “Those of us living in the Potomac Headwaters need
to help solve the fish kill problem. We have a lot to gain. If we see a
problem in the river we need to report it. The more information the agencies
have the more quickly the problem will be solved.”
DNR's Bret Preston adds "Having citizen involvement and support in reporting local conditions is extremely helpful to all of these investigators. These partnerships certainly improve our chances of determining the cause and taking steps to improve the health of the rivers."