DIRECTOR'S CORNER
Virginia intensifies Shenandoah fish death investigation
DEQ, in cooperation with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, established the Shenandoah River Fish Kill Task Force in July 2005 to coordinate the investigation. The task force has looked at a number of theories to explain the fish kills, which caused the loss of about 80 percent of the adult smallmouth bass and redbreast sunfish in 2005 and damaged the area’s recreational and tourism industries. Possible causes include excess nutrients, infectious disease or the effects of hormones produced from natural and pharmaceutical processes.
As a result of this collaborative effort, the task force, which includes state and federal agencies, universities and community groups, has proposed one of the most comprehensive and intensive studies of a watershed within Virginia. Several investigations are expected to begin during spring 2006.
This multi-disciplinary approach is needed because the fish kills were not the result of an obvious cause such as a pollution spill. They were marked by a number of unusual characteristics: mostly adult – not young – smallmouth bass and redbreast sunfish were affected in the 2005 fish kill and few fish of other species were killed; the kills happened slowly over several months and for many miles along the river; and they appear to be the latest in a series of eastward moving fish kills that started in 2002 in West Virginia’s South Branch of the Potomac River.
DEQ is proposing a four-month water sampling plan on the Shenandoah River starting in March. This plan includes sampling every day at nine to 10 stations and several times per day during storm events to capture the effects of significant runoff. The agency will test for nutrients, ammonia, temperature, dissolved oxygen and other factors to determine how changes in environmental conditions may affect the health of the fish.
The agency also plans to expand coverage of potential pollutants that may concentrate in fish tissue. As part of the agency’s routine monitoring of metals and pesticides in fish tissue, DEQ collected samples during the 2005 fish kill. Members of the task force are working to identify chemicals not usually addressed in DEQ’s analyses and will add them to a list of contaminants to be measured in these samples.
The U.S. Geological Survey in Leetown, W.Va., and DGIF are proposing an evaluation of fish health in the Shenandoah River. The agencies plan to collect fish from the Shenandoah River, examine each specimen in the field and conduct further analysis in the laboratory to document signs of stress from sources such as disease, parasites and pollutants. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s fish disease lab in Lamar, Pa., will also test the fish specimens for diseases and parasites.
The USGS office in Richmond also is proposing a water monitoring project to conduct real-time monitoring of ammonia and nutrients at several sites in the Shenandoah River watershed.
These primary research initiatives and additional ecological and climatological assessments of the watershed by several state universities will yield a wealth of information about the health of the Shenandoah River watershed, even if another fish kill does not occur this spring. The Virginia General Assembly is now considering proposals to fund these research projects.
The cooperative nature of community members and state and federal agencies on the task force is a demonstration of the importance of a healthy environment to the well-being of Virginians, and these comprehensive research initiatives will help set the stage for a better understanding the of Shenandoah River watershed. We need to know more, not only to prevent another fish kill, but also to improve water quality, to understand how and why the watershed’s ecosystem is changing, and to protect a way of life in the Shenandoah Valley.