A massive fish kill on the Chattahoochee River west of Atlanta was reported Friday by environmental safety non-profit, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper. Chattahoochee Riverkeeper government director Jason Ulseth advised NCS he found the useless fish when he embarked on a river patrol Friday morning.
Ulseth estimates hundreds of fish, some weighing 20 to 30 kilos, are useless alongside a roughly 20-mile stretch of river on the western border of Fulton County. He discovered noticed bass, catfish, carp, shad and striped bass — floating, strewn alongside banks and caught in particles piles and low-hanging tree branches.
An unidentified, foul-smelling black substance has additionally coated the river banks, in accordance to Ulseth.
“To see everything dead was just catastrophic,” Ulseth stated.
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The die-off adopted an intense thunderstorm that dumped three inches of rain per hour on the Atlanta metro space Wednesday, which additionally flooded area streets resulting in flash flooding.
Investigations into the reason for the fish kill are ongoing by Chattahoochee Riverkeeper and the City of Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management. Both entities consider drought and warmth performed a task in the die-off.
Due to extended drought, the river was working very low when the storm arrived. There merely wasn’t sufficient cool water to reasonable the inflow of considerably hotter stormwater, heated by city infrastructure.
“Once the heavy rainfall event hit the downtown urban core, the river had little buffer capacity to absorb nutrients and thermal loads. The flow on the Chattahoochee River was very low, while the urban streams were very high flowing into the river. The elevated temperature and time of day may have contributed to the creation of additional thermal load and stress on aquatic life,” Lena Hardy, a spokesperson for the City of Atlanta Department of Watershed Management, advised NCS.
But Chattahoochee Riverkeeper believes stormwater and sewage discharge from an underground tunnel system constructed to maintain extra wastewater doubtless additionally contributed to the incident.
“At this time, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper believes low flows in the river due to drought, massive polluted stormwater flows from Peachtree Creek, a discharge of untreated combined sewage from the City of Atlanta into Peachtree Creek, and additional treated discharges from wastewater facilities into the Chattahoochee River created the conditions for the fish kill,” the organization said in a Saturday press release.
Ulseth stated he discovered condoms, menstrual merchandise and moist wipes in the river, which he says strongly counsel sewage contamination. Other litter, extra in line with stormwater flows, have additionally amassed with the useless fish, he stated.
Moreover, the affected stretch of river begins the place an overflow construction related to the tunnel system drains into the river, in accordance to Ulseth.
Hardy stated that, as of Monday, “preliminary water quality data indicates the tunnel system operated as designed and within permitted water quality standards. However, all laboratory tests have not been completed, and DWM is still investigating the impact to the river and the relationship to the fish die off.”
Ulseth says litigation over sewage contamination in the Chattahoochee River dates again to the Nineties and is ongoing.
NCS additionally reached out Georgia Environmental Protection Division and Georgia Department of Natural Resources. The pure useful resource company directed NCS to the Georgia Environmental Protection Division.