Fish Kill Event - Cedar Creek

North of Fonda

Event ID: 1054
Date of Kill: 7/17/2023
Waterbody Type: River/Stream
Cause Origin: Unknown
Cause: Unknown
Mode: N/A
Magnitude: 3 (1001 - 5000 fish killed)
Kill Length: 23.00 miles
County: Pocahontas
ESD Field Office: FO 3
Fisheries Office: Black Hawk Lake Office
LongDD: -94.81614
LatDD: 42.64568
Created Date: 6/4/2024 8:37:41 AM
Last Update: 6/4/2024 1:11:44 PM

For more information about this fish kill event, contact the Field Office or Fisheries Office listed above.

Impacted Assessment Segments

Lat/Long uses WGS84 datum

Highlighted river segments indicate those impacted in part or whole by this fish kill event. It is not meant to represent the actual extent of the kill.

Onsite Comments

We went to the rapids at Hagge Park on the North Raccoon River, which is near the Sac CCB office and found several hundred dead fish accumulated below the riffle in an eddy. The fish consisted of shiners, minnows, a few chubs, and a few small (8 inch) channel catfish. Very few dead fish were above the riffle. There was also evidence of a recent high water event with piles of duckweed and other flotsam deposited on the river bank about 1 foot above the current water level. Although the other reports I had gotten were about dead fish in Cedar Creek, we went up to Sac Access to look at the riffle there. The riffle at Sac Access is on the North Raccoon River and about ¼ mile upstream of the confluence with the North Raccoon River and Cedar Creek. There were no dead fish observed at the Sac Access riffle, which ruled out a separate fish kill on the North Raccoon River.

Top extent was appears to be the middle bridge crossing on 150th avenue (middle of the three), which is the first crossing on 150th Avenue south of 570th Street (CR 49). Only a handful of dead fish were observed.

Field Office concluded that it was not worth doing a full fish enumeration given how spread out and sporadic the dead fish were, recent high-water events, and the high likelihood that no RP would be found.

In summary, it is estimated that thousands of fish were killed. While only a handful of fish were observed at some bridge crossings, hundreds were observed in other locations and the fish kill was quite long. The only sportfish I observed were about 4 channel catfish (8 inches). The rest of the fish appeared to be minnows, shiners, and chubs. Identification down to the species would have been difficult on many of the fish due to decomposition.