| Author | Message | ||
| Basspro_de
New member Username: Basspro_de Post Number: 7 Registered: 2-2003 |
An estimated 6,000 juvenile menhaden died early Monday morning in Torquay Canal, the second fish kill in less than a week in Delaware's Inland Bays. Fisheries scientists said the fish probably were killed by a combination of factors, including a bloom of microscopic algae, low-dissolved oxygen in the water and a rapid rise in hydrogen sulfide near the surface. All are related to poor water quality in the Inland Bays, caused in part by excess nutrients in stormwater runoff from developed land and farms, sewage treatment plants and failing septic systems. "It may have been a small school of menhaden at the wrong place at the wrong time," said Roy Miller, state fisheries administrator. Young menhaden spend the summer schooling around estuaries like the bays, then join with schools of older fish to winter and spawn in Atlantic coastal waters. The number of fish that perished Monday is small compared with the number of menhaden that died in dead-end artificial channels three years ago. Millions of fish died in two separate incidents in 2000 on Bald Eagle Creek and Torquay Canal, and millions more died in other tributaries of Rehoboth and Indian River bays. Monday's fish kill and another last week that killed 2,000 fish in Love Creek, which feeds into Rehoboth Bay, may indicate more problems this year in the canals than in 2001 and 2002. Officials said algae has been building this year with summer temperatures. But Kevin Donnelly, Delaware director of water resources, said Monday's fish kill in Torquay Canal isn't cause for alarm. "It's the Grand Canyon of canals along the Inland Bays" he said. "It's an abnormal, man-made canal that in no way reşects the natural environmental of the Inland Bays." The Torquay Canal is a horseshoe-shaped dead-end canal just off of Bald Eagle Creek, one of many waterways dug and dredged in the 1960s to depths below the adjoining bay. That created dead-end pools with little to no dissolved oxygen circulation. Glenn Ruoff, a Rehoboth Beach Country Club resident who lives along Torquay Canal, said Monday that he noticed the early warning signs of problems last weekend. "I noticed about two days ago kind of an unusual smell in the air," he said. He said fish were jumping out of the water and crabs were trying to climb up onto the bulkheads. "It's not pleasant." State and local officials have worked to improve water quality in Rehoboth, Indian River and Little Assawoman bays in the last two decades by helping remove aging septic tanks and improve sewage treatment systems. The state also has worked with farm groups to reduce the amount of chicken manure applied to fields as fertilizer, a source of nitrogen and phosphorus draining from the land into the water when it rains. Those nutrients feed algae growth. State officials and researchers with nonprofit organizations continue to study water chemistry in the bays to gather more information about exactly what is killing the fish. As soon as Ed Whereat got news of the fish kill Monday, he sent out an intern to collect water samples. Whereat is the volunteer coordinator for Inland Bays Citizens Monitoring, a program run by the marine advisory service of the University of Delaware's Graduate College of Marine Studies in Lewes. "It was kind of a curious bloom" of algae because it included many varieties-none of them toxic, Whereat said. The water in the canal was a muddy brown, most likely discolored by the high concentration of algae, he said. George W. Luther III, a UD oceanography professor, said his students last week found hydrogen sulfide in the upper three feet of the water. Hydrogen sulfide, formed as organic matter decomposes near the bottom, accumulates in the deep holes created when Torquay Canal was dug. The substance produces a rotten egg smell that is bothersome to humans, and fatal for fish. Luther said researchers will sample again Thursday to try to discover how much hydrogen sulfide came to the surface and how much remains at the bottom.  | ||
| Charlietuna
Senior Member Username: Charlietuna Post Number: 1460 Registered: 7-2000 |
And to think that this canal is where I learned to water ski long before there were houses there. There were similar fish kills in the canal back in the 70s too. You could always smell the sulfer. | ||
| Basspro_de
New member Username: Basspro_de Post Number: 8 Registered: 2-2003 |
this is one of the reasons i dont eat local fish. catch and release or catch and give away. |