A late September fish kill on a trout stream in Southeastern Minnesota has an angler and geologist concerned about the lack of inquiry into the effects the incident may have on the area's drinking water.
Back in September, Chris Rogers reported in the Winona Post article, Fish kill decimates upper Garvin Brook:
Hundreds, likely thousands, of fish have died after a fish kill in Garvin Brook near Farmers Park outside Stockton, according to the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). The Minnesota Duty Officer received a report of the fish kill last Thursday morning. The cause is still unknown. State investigators were on the scene on Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.
DNR staff collected 224 dead fish — brown trout, brook trout, and sculpin — at five sampling stations along the stream, DNR Area Fisheries Assistant Director Vaughn Snook reported. After further work to determine how much of the stream was affected, investigators will use those samples to estimate how many total fish were killed. “It’s impossible to count the entire amount of dead fish. So we set up these stations and extrapolate,” Snook explained.
“It’s not the South-Branch-of-the-Whitewater-in-2015-sized — mostly just because it’s not that big of water,” Snook said when asked how the size of this fish kill compares to others. “But it’s definitely more than a couple hundred fish. It’s probably into the thousands.” . . .
Read the entire article at the Winona Post.
Jeffrey Broberg, director of the Minnesota Well Owners Organization (MnWOO) and resident of Southeastern Minnesota near St. Charles, is deeply concerned about the apparent lack of concern by state agency investigators about the effect the water that killed the fish may have on local wells and other drinking water sources.
He explained his concerns in a pdf he sent Bluestem (and others, who forwarded the document to us):
9-30-19 Garvin Brook Fish Kill Impacts Our Drinking Water uploaded by Sally Jo Sorensen on Scribd
One correspondent reminded us that in the Private Well Pesticide Sampling Project run by the Minnesota Department of Agriculture:
The original pilot study was in part motivated by the report “Analysis of Co-occurrence of Nitrate-Nitrogen and Pesticides in Minnesota Groundwater” which investigated the link between nitrate-nitrogen and pesticides in wells from around the state. Nitrate-nitrogen (also known as nitrate) is a water soluble compound made up of nitrogen and oxygen. It can occur naturally in groundwater at levels typically in the range of 0 to 3 milligrams per liter (mg/L). Human activities such as sewage disposal, livestock production, and crop fertilization can elevate the level of nitrate in groundwater. Results from the co-occurrence paper suggested that mobile pesticides are more likely to be detected in a well when nitrate concentrations increase beyond natural background levels.
Please contact the MDA for an electronic copy of the "Analysis of Co-occurrence of Nitrate-Nitrogen and Pesticides in Minnesota Groundwater".
We'll be on the lookout for conclusions--or lack thereof--discovered by the fish kill investigators.
Photo: Dead trout in Garvin Creek. Photo by Chris Rogers, Winona Post.
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