One of Bluestem's Facebook friend's posted a picture of a fish kill in the West Fork of Beaver Creek in Renville County. The creek is a tributary of our beloved Minnesota River, and its tributaries are an important part of the watershed's freshwater fish ecology.
Anglers have pulled some enormous flathead catfish from the river at Franklin, St. Peter and Belle Plaine within the last month, so this small blow to efforts to clean up the river water isn't good news.
We had just paddled downstream of Renville County on Sunday, from New Ulm to Courtland with friends from Wild River Academy and CURE, delighting in the eagles, roiling fish and a otter along the way.
Update: Minnesota River champion John G. White noted on Facebook:
This is actually one of the tributaries where more than 50 percent of the riverine shore is planted into buffer strips, and was used as example of the efforts farmers and landowners have made to control sediments and nutrient pollution to the Minnesota River. Most years the water in Beaver Creek runs pretty clear thanks to these efforts. And now this.
Here's the press release:
Fish kill in West Fork Beaver Creek: wastewater release reported
- A Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) investigation is under way into a fish kill in West Fork Beaver Creek south of Danube in Renville County. The Minnesota Duty Officer received a call at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 14, reporting “a lot of dead fish and scummy water in Beaver Creek.”On Thursday morning, Hawk Creek Watershed Project and MPCA staff took dissolved oxygen readings in the creek, and Minnesota Department of Natural Resources staff took fish samples. Dissolved oxygen (DO) had dropped as low as 0.1 milligram per liter (mg/L), which is 50 times below the standard of 5 mg/L. DO of at least 5 mg/L is needed to sustain healthy communities of aquatic life. Observers saw many dead fish and other aquatic life, including northern pike, smallmouth bass, creek chubs, suckers, bullheads, shiners and other minnows, as well as crayfish and dragonflies.
The MPCA believes the cause of the low DO is the biological breakdown of organic material, which uses up much of the DO in the water. The impacts were evident for about 10 miles downstream. Investigators do not believe that toxic chemicals were present.
Friday morning the state duty officer received a report from the Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative near Renville, stating that a valve in the facility’s wastewater treatment system had been left open Wednesday evening, resulting in a discharge of “non-treated water” into county ditch 37, which goes into West Fork Beaver Creek. The amount released was estimated to be more than 4,000 and less than 20,000 gallons. The cooperative’s facility holds a water quality permit from the MPCA. Discharge of untreated wastewater is not authorized by the permit.
The cooperative is working to install treatment measures, such as placing pumps to aerate water in the stream to increase DO levels. Other possible measures include pumping contaminated water from the stream and spreading it on land.
Treatment activities and water sampling are expected to continue over the weekend as the MPCA continues to investigate the incident.
Photo: Fish kill in the West Fork of Beaver Creek, by Thomas Kalahar. Via Facebook.
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Such a sad attack on the health of our waters by careless human error and agri-waste.
Posted by: Timellis0965 | Aug 17, 2013 at 09:24 PM