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Major fish kill on lower Susquehanna River...

2K views 18 replies 8 participants last post by  travlin-easy 
#1 ·
This time of year is when many of the anadromous species of fish ascend the might Susquehanna River to spawn. These include American shad, hickory shad, blueback herring, branch herring, sturgeon and a few other lesser known species. The most abundant are current the shad and herrings, which until this past Saturday evening were really stacked up in the river just below Conowingo Dam. By Sunday morning, thousands of them were found floating down the river- DEAD!

I called the Maryland Department of Environment to report the kill and got nothing but answering machines. This morning I called the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, ended getting through to the Natural Resources Police, and they said it had been reported and they were "doing a flyover." Yep, they are going to fly over the now disbursed rafts of dead shad and herring, make a WAG (Wild Assed Guess) as to the amount of dead fish involved, then they'll put out a report to the news casters saying that the fish died of anoxia. NO $HIT Charlie Brown! Why else do you think they died?

Those of us that have been involved in investigating the many fish kills on the lower Susquehanna River for the past 6 decades are fairly confident why they died. The power company that operates Conowingo Dam shut the water off so they could conserve water to make more money during peak power demand times is the likely culprit, but without having access to the operating schedule records, this is very difficult to prove unless someone actually was there to witness the event. This is not the first time this has happened, and probably will not be the last. Kills involving more than 1-million fish have taken place in the past, particularly during the mid 1970s. This one involved several thousand fish, most of which are now washed into the shores of the river and floating in rafts over the Susquehanna Flats. They will soon be consumed by various scavengers, but until then the stench is horrendous and will be for weeks to come.

Under regulations set forth by FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) the dam is required to provide minimal flows of 5,500 cubic feet of water flow per second throughout the year to prevent this from happening. Sometimes, just sometimes, they have a tendency to try to circumvent the regulation and hope they don't get caught and fined. The fine, however, is a token amount and not at all a deterrent.

Gary :cool::cut_out_animated_em
 
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#4 ·
Glad you did - might help others to know this kind of thing is going on.

Elvers and catfish are not usually effected in the initial fish kills because of their much lower O2 demand. However, if the weather was warmer, they, along with ALL other species, would have been killed as well, especially as the decaying corpses of the shad and herring depleted the O2 level even farther. The water is still cold enough for some small amounts of O2 to be retained in the water, which supports elvers and catfish. I did see a few dead carp, though.

What is amazing is when the bleeding heart liberal press gets hold of this they will act as if this is just a nothing story and either ignore it completely, or you will see 5 seconds on TV blaming it on low oxygen in the water without any farther explanation or follow up. I've seen this happen hundreds of time over the past 50 years.

A week from now the ace crackerjack team of scientists from Maryland Department of Environment will send some college kid to the river's shores to investigate the kill. By that time, most of the dead fish will have been consumed by scavengers, herons, raccoons, foxes, snapping turtles and even eagles. His or her report will be the source of the kill will be "inconclusive" and that will be the end of it until the next kill.

Keep in mind that hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money has been spent on the restoration of American shad along the east coast of the US. Fish lifts, fish ladders, hatcheries, and research projects, some of which I have been directly involved in, have been utilized over the past 50 years to bring about the resurrection of this once abundant species. Yet, in their infinite wisdom, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Atlantic States Fisheries Commission continued to permit an offshore, commercial intercept shad fishery - WHAT INSANITY!

When I was a youngster, you could not cast a fishing line in the Susquehanna or Delaware rivers this time of year without catching an American shad (AKA white shad) or it's smaller cousin, the hickory shad. Today, this is strictly a catch and release fishery for recreational anglers in Maryland.

Additionally, these fisheries supported a relatively small, but robust segment of our economy. In Harford County, Maryland, during the 1960s and 1970s, there were three dozen fishing tackle stores that did a thriving business because the fisheries of Chesapeake Bay were also thriving during the same period. Once those fisheries were depleted, each and every one of those shops went out of business. Other allied businesses that soon failed included small boat and motor retailers, small boat rental liveries along the lower Susquehanna and middle Delaware rivers, and all of the commercial fish processors in Havre de Grace, MD. Shad roe, shad fillet and pickled herring, which were once available in every local super market were no longer in the cases. In realistic terms, thousands upon thousands of people were put out of work, all because this one major fishery was depleted by the construction of dams and overfishing by commercial interests.

Unfortunately, none of this is likely to change, at least not from my perspective. I'm an old codger, I'll be 77 in October, and I have been watching these kind of things take place for more than a half century, and nothing seems to change. Yep, we get lots of lip service from the culprits, the fisheries experts, and politicians, but in reality, nothing has essentially changed in 50 years. The intensity of the fish kills seem to have diminished to some extent, but this may be because the populations of those species involved have declined so much that the numbers are just not available to create the massive kills of the past.

If this summer is as hot as some of the weather prognosticators predict, there will likely be fish kills in many of the major tributaries to Chesapeake Bay as well. Striped bass, Atlantic menhaden, carp, channel catfish, and perch will likely be found floating belly up in the Patapsco, Back, Middle, Chester and upper Potomac rivers, all dead of anoxia or depleted oxygen levels. Maryland DNR and MDE will blame the weather, and the press will report their finding as gospel, yet no one will point the finger of blame to the real culprits.

Sorry about the rant, but after all these years, I guess I have become a bit frustrated.

Gary :|
 
#3 ·
Damn shame ... and will result in -yet one more- future season's decline of the migrating fish stocks.
They probably dumped some trash gates too quickly and unloaded the foul/deoxygenated bottom water behind the damn dam.

Any elvers showing up dead in this 'kill'? The adult eels should be 'just coming in', too ... the small feeder streams on the upper Delaware R. are starting with a decent run of adult eels; early herring and 'hickories' are already 'started'.
 
#5 ·
Gary, what do you expect from an explicitly 'pro-business' governor? They all want to gut the environmental enforcement agencies and force them to do mostly make-believe work. I saw the same attitudes in NC in the last 30 years. Any progress when it comes to environment was forced on these bastards by the People who organized and made noise about it.
 
#7 ·
You have GOT to be kidding me. Maryland has been under Democratic party rule from after Spiro Agnew in 1969, all the way to Bob Erlich in 2003. That's 34 YEARS. Then, O'Malley for 8 years and the current governor has only been in office for a couple of years. The legislature has been solidly Democratic the entire time.

Do NOT make this political or I will drop Donna on you like a grand piano from a penthouse suite. The water is dirty and no one cares. Period.
 
#6 ·
Kriss, this has been going on since long before this governor came into office. In fact, it was far worse during the previous administrations. I can clearly remember when Don Schaeffer enacted the CRAP (Crab Reduction Action Program), which restricted the recreational catch, but ignored the commercial catch. Martin O'Mally lifted many of the commercial fishing restrictions, thus allowing several species to be over-exploited once again, placing them in jeopardy. I was in heated committee debates with Fred Maukus and many other state senators and delegates as they did their best to eliminate many, many conservation measures that were before the state legislature. None of this is new, or uncommon among politicians. Just follow the money trail.

Gary :cool:
 
#10 ·
'The flush' was probably a natural event. There's been quite a bit of heavy rain in the Susquehanna and Delaware River valleys for the past ~24-36 hours prior to Wed AM. Delaware was running about 3-4 ft. higher than 'normal' early this AM through Bucks County.
 
#11 ·
Natural or not, get ready for a $hitload of big debris in the upper bay during the next few days. I saw logs the size of telephone polls, picnic tables, 55-gallon drums and lots of other stuff washing downriver right past my boat yesterday. Stuff that could sink anything that hits it, even at modest speeds. There was 15 to 20 acres of flotsam just above the dam last week and now, most of it is gone. Believe me, the dam operators didn't just bring in dump trucks and scoop that stuff out of the water - it's headed your way guys and gals.

Keep your eyes peeled,

Gary :cool:
 
#15 ·
Yup, such is fairly obvious proof positive they opened the damn trash rakes en mass on the damn dam, and probably to the amount of flow volume that sucked up and entrained the deoxygenated water on the bottom thats always there on the upstream side of any dam .... the 'slug' of dead water is probably what killed all the fish. VERY VERY SAD. They 'could' have done this long before the 'runs' of migratory fish started .... like in early March.

Oh well, you'll never notice the the smell from the decaying fish due to the over-powering and overwhelming stink of raw sewage that always 'over-tops' and flows out of Baltimore's Back Creek sewage treatment plant during 'any' high water incident.
 
#13 ·
Yes, there is one in Maryland, which is just a 6-mile segment of the river, and there are a couple upriver in PA and one in NY. Now, however, have been very effective, though. If I'm still alive next spring, I'll shoot some photos of the debris above Conowingo Dam and post them here. You won't believe what you see.

Gary :cool:
 
#16 ·
Riverkeepers my arse. Riverkeepers probably cause more diversion of funding for 'environmental protection' usage due to their ever-constant lawsuits over inane legal minutae.
This is kind of like "Super Fund" expenditures where probably 90% of those expenditures of funding always go for 'legal' costs, which could better be applied to faster and more thorough 'clean up'.
 
#17 ·
Maybe not as bad, but what happens here in the NW with salmon and there ilk spawning in the rivers here. I'm not a right handed political pundit, more left, I personally do not like what is happening when things like this happen. I have a sister and BIL that both studied in the fisheries end of things, but degree got them no where locally with cut backs from local legislature.
ANYONE that is worried about the environment needs to say something about things like this.

Marty
 
#19 ·
I've been covering this beat since the early 1970s when the largest kills took place. In nearly every instance, it had nothing whatsoever to do with dead water above the dam, but instead, it was the lack of water coming through the turbines and over the spillways that caused the problem. When you have millions upon millions of fish jammed into a 5-mile stretch of the river and the water suddenly stops flowing, the fish rapidly consume all the O2 and suffocate to death. It happens in a matter of minutes, not hours or days. This is why the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission enacted a mandate for minimal water flows throughout the year at Conowingo Dam. When the minimal flows are maintained, there is sufficient oxygenated water to support the fisheries below the dam.

Now, water that spills over the spillways is highly oxygenated by the spillways and the splash troughs at the base of the spillways. Water flowing through the turbines is also oxygenated, but not nearly to the extent of the water flowing over the spillways. Throughout most of the year, large populations of striped bass, smallmouth and largemouth bass, channel catfish, gizzard shad, carp, blue catfish, sunfish, crappie, and various forms of forage species thrive in the fast flowing waters below Conowingo Dam. American shad, hickory shad and at least two species of herring are only here for a few weeks during April and early May.

During the summer months, when water temperatures often reach the mid 80s, the fish downriver of the dam are very vulnerable to slight changes in dissolved oxygen, however, when the flow of 5,000 CFS is maintained, there has never been a fish kill in this area. The only time a kill has taken place is when the water flows are allowed to be turned off - even for a short period of time.

Now, all the heavy rain water that was flowing down the river during the past few weeks is frequently stored in Muddy Run Reservoir, a manmade reservoir situated on the York County side of Conowingo Lake. Huge volumes of water is actually pumped from Conowingo Lake uphill to Muddy Run, stored there, then released through turbines back into Conowingo Lake, where it again flows downriver to the turbines at Conowingo Dam. This water is very highly oxygenated before it enters the turbines at Conowingo Dam, thus the dead water above the dam theory doesn't hold water, so to speak.

While some folks would like to tell you this is a very complex problem, and more studies need to be conducted, in reality, it's all just common sense, which unfortunately, is not very common anymore.

Today, the water flowing downriver was relatively clear, with underwater visibility ranging about 2 feet, which is considered good for this area any time of year. The debris flowing downriver has decreased somewhat, but Maryland DNR Police, the agency that is supposed to enforce the no discharge law, got their comeuppance today as they sped beneath the Amtrac Bridge at Havre de Grace. When I went past them, they were tilting up their outboards and inspecting the props that just struck a partly submerged log - anyone wonder where that log came from? ;)

Happy sailing,

Gary :cool:
 
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