Johns Creek IA 01-NMQ-1929

This kill occurred on or before August 12, 2005. The party responsible for the kill was not identified. The kill occurred in the SE ¼ of Section 35, T88N, R2W, Dubuque Co.; approximately 0.25 miles of stream was affected. Despite a thorough investigation of the kill by DNR field staff, no cause or source of the kill was identified. Although no estimate was given for the number of fish killed, comments from the investigation note that “suckers, chubs and minnows” were killed. Investigators concluded that this localized kill may have been caused by combination of factors; for example, manure plus lignin sulfonate (recently sprayed on a nearby road for dust control) in combination with a rainfall event of approximately 1 inch on the night of August 11. This is the first kill reported for this segment of Johns Creek. A kill occurred in the lower reach of Johns Creek (IA 01-NMQ-0110-0) in July 1985.

This stream segment’s fish community was sampled on October 9, 2013, as part of the DNR Watershed Improvement and Water Monitoring sections’ fishkill follow up monitoring program. Sampling methods described in DNR’s fish kill follow-up protocol (Attachment 5 of Iowa’s assessment/listing methodology) were followed. Approximately 700 feet of stream were sampled using a single pass with two backpack electro fishing units. Results of this sampling show that this stream supports approximately 1,870 fish per mile compared to the Level IV ecoregion 47f average of approximately 1,590 fish per mile; 73% of the expected fish taxa for this ecoregion were sampled. The results from this follow-up sampling and comparison of these results to ecoregion averages suggest that the fish community of this stream segment is similar to or better than non-fishkill impacted streams. Although the results of the fishkill follow-up sampling lack the scientific rigor to determine whether the designated aquatic life uses are “fully supported,” the results do indicate that the stream has recovered from the August 2005 fish kill event. Thus, this stream segment was moved from impairment Category 5b of Iowa’s Integrated Report to Category 3a (designated use not assessed) for the 2014 IR cycle and remains in that category for the current cycle.