Massive Fish Kill From Toxic Spill Closes Winooski River (VT)

[hatrack]

CABOT – Bacteria from the rotting carcasses of thousands of dead fish, not the remnants of the spilled refrigerant that was responsible for killing them, is the primary reason why officials with the state Health Department are continuing to warn residents to stay out of the Winooski River.

State Toxicologist Bill Bress said Wednesday that results from a battery of tests conducted on water samples taken at several locations along the North Branch of the Winooski earlier this week should be available later today. Those results, he said, should provide the first tangible evidence about the water quality along a lengthy stretch of river that was tainted when a solution containing an ammonia-based refrigerant was allowed to continuously overflow into a storm drain outside Cabot Creamery’s manufacturing plant in Cabot.

According to Cabot officials, the solution containing the toxic anhydrous ammonia first made its way into the river located less than 200 yards from the local creamery on Sunday. Before the practice was finally stopped early Monday afternoon a five-mile stretch of river running from Cabot all the way through Marshfield Village was littered with dead fish – some floating on the surface and most resting on the riverbed.

Bress said it is the bacteria that could result from the decomposition of those fish – not the ammonia that led to their untimely demise – that now poses a potential public health threat. “It’s primarily the rotting fish, and is there a health risk from that?” he said, suggesting that exposure to such bacteria could cause E-coli infection and gastrointestinal distress. “Hopefully the (dead) fish will just be eaten or taken away and that will solve the problem,” he said. Officials with the state Department of Fish & Wildlife have said they have no plans to collect what they believe are “tens of thousands” of dead fish."

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http://www.timesargus.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050721/SERVICES02/50720003/1002/NEWS01

[glitch]

1. Eco-terrorists. Yes, I am talking about the people who run Cabot Creamery.

when they say "practice" does that mean it was intentional? The article doesn't say.