Raleigh News and Observer
7/28/98
Year's first big fish kill
Officials await tests to determine whether pfiesteria killed tens
of thousands of dead menhaden in the Neuse.
By JAMES ELI SHIFFER, Staff Writer
Tens of thousands of dead menhaden littered six miles of the pollution-plagued
lower Neuse River on Monday, marking the first major coastal fish
kill this year.
Scientists predicted this spring that fish would suffer from the
sewage and other pollution washed into the river by heavy rains.
The state's Neuse River Rapid Response Team estimated the number
of fish killed at 188,000. The dead fish showed sores typically
caused by pfiesteria, but state officials will have to await test
results to determine whether the notorious microscopic organism
was to blame, said Don Reuter, a spokesman for the state Department
of Environment and Natural Resources.
Reuter said the state's response team determined the kill covered
the entire river channel from Minnesott Beach in Pamlico County
west to Goose Creek near the Craven County line. "The span
and the area of the river we're talking about is pretty sizable,"
he said Monday. But many of the fish could have been dispersed
over that wide area by the strong winds that have buffeted the
coast over the weekend.
State health director Dennis McBride traveled to the coast Monday
afternoon to check whether the river should be closed to protect
the public from pfiesteria, whose toxins have been blamed for
sickening people in North Carolina and Maryland. A storm prevented
McBride from getting out on the water, so he decided against shutting
down the river until he could assess potential public health risks,
said Mark Van Sciver, a spokesman for McBride.
As it reaches the coast after a 200-mile journey from Raleigh,
the Neuse widens into an estuary that has been plagued with algae
blooms and fish deaths for at least 25 years. Pfiesteria and other
harmful creatures crop up in water sullied by nitrogen-rich runoff
and discharges from livestock, farm fields streets and sewage
pipes.
A billion fish perished in the lower Neuse seven years ago, but
it was not until pfiesteria killed up to 14 million fish in the
fall of 1995 that the state embarked on an aggressive plan to
clean up the Neuse. The centerpiece of that plan -- a provision
requiring the preservation of buffer strips of trees around streams
in the Neuse basin -- has come under attack in the state House,
which will debate changes to the rule this week.
Reuter said a state airplane would fly over the river to monitor
the giant schools of menhaden that ply the estuary and often fall
prey to pfiesteria.
Rick Dove, the Neuse River Foundation's river keeper, spent one
hour on the water Monday gazing at the same sight he has printed
on his business cards: lifeless fish with red lesions. Dove said
he suspected the fish kill began earlier this month and centered
on an area near Flanner's Beach. "What is floating on the
surface, coming by my dock right now, are menhaden, and they've
got the telltale sores on them," said Dove, who keeps his
boat at Carolina Pines on the south shore of the Neuse in Craven
County.
James Eli Shiffer can be reached at 836-5701 or jshiffer@nando.com