Yesterday, I received word that there had been a fish kill on the Rush River. Eye witnesses found dead trout, rough fish, minnows, sculpins and other aquatic life up river of the bridge at Centerville in St, Croix County and for at least 3/4 of a mile down stream of Centerville. The location and cause of the kill is still under investigation. I placed a call to Marty Engel, DNR Senior Fisheries Biologist for the area. The message on his phone was that DNR was aware of the kill on the Rush River. The recording asked for name and number and communicated that the call would be returned. I left that information and I am awaiting a return call.
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18 users commented in " Fish Kill on Upper Rush River in Western Wisconsin "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackbackthanks Andy. If you don’t mind, I’m going to send these to Gateway News; they’ll get printed next week (too late for this week) in the Spring Valley, Elmwood and Woodville papers. They WILL BE SEEN by those who think factory farms are the bee’s knees.
Though I’ve killed plenty of fish to eat, images like these give me a stomach ache. Hope they find the turd nugget that did this. I heard a story about some idiot pouring a bottle of bleach in Hay Creek some years ago and all I could think was, How stupid would you have to be…seriously. Sad news.
Terrible. Does it not affect the downstream fish as much simply because of dilution? The factory farm there is the most obvious cause, right? Can it be anything else?
Eric
I will post an update tonight. I shy away from speculation, better to have the facts in hand.
Wooow, man this is sickening. Really sickeng. I’ve not seen such a thing before in streams, only heard some stories.
I gotta say it burns you to no end. Really, really sickening.
Thanks for the pictures Andy. It does something to you.
Jeremy.
Its really so sad that every few years we get a story like this in the springtime. While yes, its probably smart to wait and see what the facts bear out… I can’t help but become so dissapointed in all of it.
The last several years have given us too many of these scenes. We had the idiot dumping bleach into Hay Creek… then we had the farmer in the Kickapoo Valley who laid liquid manure fertilizer down on a still frozen ground trying to beat mother nature… only to run-off into the creek in an early spring rainstorm.
The facts of this one will likely also bear out that the balance between mother nature and man is oh so delicate.
Thanks for sharing Andy. Too bad this one will likely be written as another bad chapter.
I would guess without even having the facts that some farm chemicals were allowed to escape or run-off from a road that was sprayed to keep the dust settled. I have seen roads and driveways sprayed with used hydrolic oil. It is a common practice that nobody seem to get alarmed about! Another disturbing practice is to spread cow, turkey, and other animals manure on top of the snow and frozen ground. When the snow melts and runs-off, it passes over the frozen ground and runs directly into the low lands and into the watersheds which include our Trout waters!!! One way to pass on a big problem and let everyone else suffer the ill effects of nearly unregulated without enforcement industry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????
Thanks for bringing this to everyone’s attention, Andy… a sad thing indeed.
Will you kindly follow-up with the cause, when it’s determined, and contact information for the person/people at fault so we can contact them?
Thank you.
BobWhite
Thanks Bob, I will.
All true.
Good to hear there are people out there that respect the river as much as I do. Sad to see
Thanks Jon
I think there are many who feel the same.
still,waiting for incident report from DNR,btw Happy Dairy Month,fishon
Bud
It is a process isn’t it. I have not updated on the kill because no new real information has been made available. It seems the higher up’s at the DNR may be dragging their feet. I wanted to give them a more than reasonable time period before I make any comments.
I have the report from the DNR.Factory Farms are allowed to kill fish on the Rush!Bullshit
bunch of crap!
http://www.lundshardware.com/Images/11-C316-004%20Synopsis%20Rush%20River%20fish%20kill.pdf
This is getting ridiculous, this is the 3rd or 4th time now for a fish kill in this area. We have politicians who support farmers more than they support the environment. I fished the Rush, yesterday (4/14) in the afternoon down by Ellsworth and we did not spot the usual fish counts in the pools. I’m wondering how severe this is?
Kyle
This fish kill happened a few years ago?
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