Large Fish Kill Reported On Black Warrior River
September 28th, 2006One of the largest fish kills ever reported in Alabama on the Black Warrior River is now under investigation.
Hundreds of thousands of dead fish are floating in a 20-mile stretch of the river between Moundville and Akron, according to state conservation officials, although there are no prime suspects at this time.
Jerry Moss, a fisheries biologist based in Northport with the Alabama Division of Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries, says he doesn’t know what caused the fish kill.
Alabama Department of Environmental Management officials have tested the water but the results will not be available for several days, according to agency spokesman Jerome Hand.
“We are paying close attention to the situation,” Hand told the Tuscaloosa News. “We’ve got three crews that we’ve pulled off of the Tombigbee and sent over there this morning.”
The first reports of the fish kill came in Sunday to the Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries division.
Most of the dead fish are non-game species, according to Moss. About 85 percent of the kill is shad, a common baitfish, he said. Most of the remaining kill is made up of freshwater drum, smallmouth buffalo and skipjack herring, along with a few bass and bream.
“A lot of anglers are upset, as you can imagine,” Moss told the Tuscaloosa newspaper.
The kill is the largest anyone has seen since at least the early 1980s, when comparable kills occurred in Paradise Lake and on the Cahaba River.
Both of those kills were related to chemical spills, Moss says, although he could detect no chemical odor in the river, only the stench of dead fish.
The kill could be man-made or some kind of unusual natural phenomenon, he indicated.
A change in the color of the river around River Mile 273, several miles below Akron, is being reported as well, along with low dissolved oxygen levels, although most of the fish kill is above the change in coloration, according to Moss.
“When the dissolved oxygen content gets below three or four parts per million, fish start dying,” Moss said.
Low oxygen conditions in lakes, rivers and streams is often caused by what scientists call high nutrient content in the water, which can be due to natural runoff, runoff from farms or suburban developments, or the more toxic kind caused by industrial pollution.
Officials are recommending that no one eat fish caught in the fish-kill area for at least two weeks until the cause and potential health risks can be determined.
