Fish Kill Event - Unnamed Drainage Ditch
near Osceola
- Event ID
- 933
- Date of Kill
- 9/27/2015
- Waterbody Type
- River/Stream
- Cause Origin
- Anthropogenic
- Cause
- Organic Material
- Mode
- Pumping Incident
- Magnitude
- 2 (101 - 1000 fish killed)
- Kill Length
- 0.40 miles
- County
- Clarke
- ESD Field Office
- FO 5
- Fisheries Office
- Mt. Ayr State Hatchery
- LongDD
- -93.79328
- LatDD
- 41.02305
- Estimated Origin Location
- True
- Created Date
- 2/13/2019 12:43:56 PM
- Last Update
- 8/6/2019 9:51:01 AM
The indicated location of this event has been estimated.
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.
Sunday - FO5 received a call from Osceola Foods that their lift station (no alarm system on it) that transfers grease waste to their pretreatment had failed sometime after midnight and they noticed around 1am; then called FO5 around 6:24am. It was indicated that it flowed across a gravel area into a ditch that eventually flows to White Breast Creek. They thought it was only around 200 gallons of water and grease. Hazmat response team from Omaha/Kansas City was onsite by approximately 12:30pm to assist with clean-up.
Monday – DNR on site observations confirmed that grease/water mix did reach a drainage ditch that leads to White Breast Creek. Affected area is about 2000 to 2500 feet, a stretch of 1500 feet had around 100-125 various small dead fish, ranging from 1 inch to 4 inches in length. HazMat of Kansas City & Omaha were on site cleaning up and contained the impacted segment of the ditch using straw bales. The impacted area was flushed and material was successfully recovered from the ditch using vacuum equipment.
Tuesday - DNR staff confirmed that the impacted area has reached beyond the original segment of the ditch. The grease mixture has breached the straw bales and is moving toward White Breast Creek via an unnamed tributary. The responsible party continues to attempt mitigation techniques along the unnamed tributary. No additional dead fish have been observed downstream and the DO values remain in a satisfactory range. Although a visual sheen may be observed downstream, the impacts to the water quality are not anticipated.