90% of Herrington fish sampled show selenium poisoning?

[waterdog101]

I grew up in the coal fields, no one had water that was pumped from a lake in our area back then, a few homes in the area had drilled wells in their yard, my grandmother had a well in her yard, it had good water but didn't produce enough to do the washing, she did the clothes washing on Saturday, and my job was to carry the wash water from an old mine opening about a thousand feet from our house, the water that ran from that old mine ran year round, it was crystal clear, yet it left an orange color on the bottom of the stream, I would get thirsty from carrying the wash water or playing in the area and drink from the old mine, it was clear and cold but had a bitter taste, everyone from the area always called it sulphur water, over the years of my youth I would think, I've drank many gallons of the sulphur water, as long as you are drinking it you can't taste the sulphur, but the after taste after you drink your fill is really bitter,

[Toy]

That bitter taste if from the acidic nature of the water, a characteristic of mine drainage. And the orange residue in the stream isn't sulfur, although that may have been the term used to describe it. The residue is iron hydroxide that's precipitating out. The reason that water is so clear is that it has nothing living in it. The acid content , along with the toxic metals like chromium, cadmium, lead, arsenic, etc., don't allow any algae growth.

Clear water isn't necessarily clean

[Buzzy]

I think there are a large amount of people who would be surprised what is is their water around their home. Just get a home test kit if you want the very basic results.

Kentucky is lucky because it has vast amounts of beautiful country and winding rivers. WE need to make sure they stay that way.

If you really love the outdoors you will care about the quality of the water so you do not poison your grand children's children.

[crappiepappy]

I'll play devil's advocate on this (but not to diminish the severity of the problem) :

I'd like to know -

How many fish were tested
What species of fish were tested
Where those fish were taken from

Seems to me, considering the location of the power plant being so close to the dam ... and the water flow towards the dam ... that a lot of that "polluted" water should be localized.

And something else that may prove to be a problem, if in fact the polluted water IS being washed thru the dam, is that the Dix River trout population would be receiving as much or more chemical pollution as the area between the coal ash drainage & the dam.

And chemical pollution from the power plant is only one factor ... considering all the stuff that's dumped into the lake (from all parts of it), and the hundreds of old 55gal drums that have been sunk in that lake, containing who knows what. Remember ... originally, most docks were floated by 55gal drums, long before styrofoam blocks were used. And many of those were sunk, after getting loose from those docks, so as to not be a hazard to water traffic.

[Buzzy]

CrappiePappy,

I am not looking to pick a fight but it does not MATTER how the data was taken only that it is IN the water and fish at dangerous levels.

But you are %100 right that it affects the trout in the Dix river all of the Sauger below lock 7 that people love to eat. All of the crappie and catfish.

Also that is a great point about the 100's of miles of shoreline that can also have problems.

[crappiepappy]

CrappiePappy,

I am not looking to pick a fight but it does not MATTER how the data was taken only that it is IN the water and fish at dangerous levels.

But you are %100 right that it affects the trout in the Dix river all of the Sauger below lock 7 that people love to eat. All of the crappie and catfish.

Also that is a great point about the 100's of miles of shoreline that can also have problems.

Not looking to pick any fights, either ... that's why I said I was playing devil's advocate, but not to diminish the severity of the problem.

I was just curious, and that's why I asked those 3 questions.


I fish Watts Bar, and eat the Crappie that I catch from there ... and they had a massive coal ash spill back in 2008. But theirs was in one of the tributary rivers, up river from the main lake where I fish. The 2012 TWRA's consumption advisory does not list Crappie ... and the fish it does list are PCB contaminated, not from any chemicals from the coal ash (like arsenic, selenium, etc). Their coal ash spill amounted to 1.1 Billion gallons of coal ash slurry, all at once.

[Buzzy]

Pappy I know you are not. I was just making sure you knew I wasn't.


Hopefully it is localized and we can do something about it. The problem is that our rivers and streams all over the state have been poisoned for some company to make money off our resources and then not give any back to the communities.

Remember the good folks in Harlan. "Which side are you on?"

[crappiepappy]

Pappy I know you are not. I was just making sure you knew I wasn't.


Hopefully it is localized and we can do something about it. The problem is that are rivers and streams all over the state have been poisoned for some company to make money off our resources and then not give any back to the communities.

Remember the good folks in Harlan. "Which side are you on?"

I'm just as concerned about it as you are, my friend !! That's why I keep up with the advisory list, and inform others to do the same.

[fishalltime]

There's un-telling how much aluminum is in the bottom of the lake all over.Wonder if that causes any type problem in the cleanly-ness of the water ?

[crappiepappy]

There's un-telling how much aluminum is in the bottom of the lake all over.Wonder if that causes any type problem in the cleanly-ness of the water ?

There's a whole lot more than just some aluminum down there, but in all likelihood it's probably so deep that there's no oxygen to deteriorate it at that depth. There's a covered bridge, the old mill foundation, and probably a lot of the old farms & stuff that was left when the lake was filled. Much of it is probably silted in, after all these decades since the lake was formed. I'm just speculating, of course.
I've fished the lake for over 60yrs & eaten fish from there up until about 10yrs ago ... I haven't had any medical reports that show any kind of chemical or metal contamination in my system. That's not to say that there isn't water quality problems at the lake, far from it !! Best we can do is keep a watchful eye on the situation, and respond accordingly.

[GeoFisher]

There's un-telling how much aluminum is in the bottom of the lake all over.Wonder if that causes any type problem in the cleanly-ness of the water ?

It is not just the chemicals............some lakes are naturally devoid of some life due to the fertility of the lake.

Now in this area, it doesn't make sense with all the farming fertilizer runoff.


It is definitely a double edged sword and something to be managed, BUT we all need to understand that while clean water is an obvious necessity, so is meat, chicken, turkey, soybeans, corn, alfalfa, etc, etc, etc, etc, So is heat, and lighting, and air conditioning, and , and, and , and..........

WE all consume the commodity items above and those commodity items have consequences. We need to try as much as we can to mitigate those consequences, but we will never get to a perfect solution. We might get to a balanced solution though.

Later,

Geo

[Moveon]

Scientist will grid off an area and assign number to different grid coordinates. Then a random number generator program is use to chose sample points on the grid. That way the sampling is truly random and unbiased. They will use lift nets to sample fish in those areas.

Fish can move great distances in a short time and they tend to school together by species and age. So a real good sampling grid would have to take that into consideration. Remember that 90% of the fish only occupy about 10% of the water at any on time.

But if they sample fish from areas that fishermen are most likely to catch fish then that would be a good way to find out if the fish we fishermen are likely to catch are contaminated or not. It's not an exact science but it the best that we can do giving the circumstances.

But if a single fish can accumulate enough selenium in it's body in it's life time then other fish could do the same thing. Remember they all school together a lot. So catching one fish out of the school would be a good indicator of what the other fish are doing in the same school. Schools of fish tend to feed on the same prey items and in the same areas.

I too have the same type of questions that pappy had in his taking the other side just for the sake of knowledge.

Heavy metals tend to accumulate in the bottom of the lake. If the selenium is coming out of the coal that's dumped near the water then it would be concentrated in that area for sure. But the biomass will tend to take up the selenium and then spread it though out the water column. And we know that it tend to accumulate in the fish or other organisms. Then they move around. Water flowing may not always move the fish in the direction of the water flow as fish are mobile. I'm not sure how strong the current is or this area so I'm talking in general.

They should try to catch and sample some of the trout to find out if they too are contaminated with the selenium. River's can tend to dilute the selenium and wash it down stream into other areas.

And there is no telling what was in those 55 gal drums before they were used to float docks. Scary stuff there. But at lease they were hopefully not full of what ever was in them at one time. Only the residue remained in the barrels hopefully. Still that could add to the problem of the contamination. The problem is that the testing people would have to know what was in the barrels before forming a testing plan to see if those contaminates are in the fish too.

But who's going to eat the fish if they have known high levels of selenium and smaller amounts of other toxin in the fish? The selenium alone would be enough to prevent me from fishing and eating fish in these waters.

You have to balance the cost of the sampling plan and the testing against the need to test the fish for human consumption. We can't afford to test for thousands of possible contaminates as it would be cost prohibitive.

I'll play devil's advocate on this (but not to diminish the severity of the problem) :

I'd like to know -

How many fish were tested
What species of fish were tested
Where those fish were taken from

Seems to me, considering the location of the power plant being so close to the dam ... and the water flow towards the dam ... that a lot of that "polluted" water should be localized.

And something else that may prove to be a problem, if in fact the polluted water IS being washed thru the dam, is that the Dix River trout population would be receiving as much or more chemical pollution as the area between the coal ash drainage & the dam.

And chemical pollution from the power plant is only one factor ... considering all the stuff that's dumped into the lake (from all parts of it), and the hundreds of old 55gal drums that have been sunk in that lake, containing who knows what. Remember ... originally, most docks were floated by 55gal drums, long before styrofoam blocks were used. And many of those were sunk, after getting loose from those docks, so as to not be a hazard to water traffic.