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Ogeechee River spill One year later
Clean-up still unresolved
051812 OGEECHEE RIVER 01
Tommy Pope, 54, takes a boat ride on the Ogeechee River near his home at Woodard Landing. The riverside community boasts about seven full-time residents and includes several weekend homes. Pope, who has lived on the river for 27 years, says he loves the water and is an avid boater and fisherman, but refuses to swim in or eat fish from the Ogeechee these days.
One year after a massive fish kill that left about 38,000 fish rotting along the shores of the Ogeechee River, Ogeechee Riverkeeper Dianna Wedincamp said conditions have not improved.Many lawsuits and appeals later, nothing has truly changed about the way King America Finishing discharges wastewater into the river, she said.After a boating trip along the Bulloch County banks of the river Friday, Wedincamp said she is seeing “the same ol’ same ol” when it comes to river pollution, the scarcity of fish, and sores on some of the few that are caught by fishermen.“There was a really low flow, and we didn’t see any fish or activity” Friday, she said, adding that the only wildlife noted were a couple birds and some small minnows.While the Georgia Department of Natural Resources restocked the river after the extensive fish kill, it would take more than a year to replace the 38,000 bream, bass, and other fish that died after a suspected discharge released more chemicals, including formaldehyde and ammonia, into the shallow river waters that were not enough to dilute the poisons, she said.The first dead fish were reported Friday, May 20, 2011, when citizens were alarmed to find about 20 bloated, sore-ridden fish floating near a private landing just downstream from the King America discharge pipe.After the initial report, Environmental Protection Division officials left a voicemail message on the King America Finishing emergency contact number. There was no answer, even when EPD officials made several more calls that evening, according to reports from the Environmental Protection Division.Test showed there was sufficient oxygen in the river at the time, eliminating that as a cause for the fish kill.On Saturday, May 21, the Department of Natural Resources Wildlife Resources Division (WRD) monitored the river for dissolved oxygen, temperature, pH, conductivity. More attempts to contact the King America emergency contact were fruitless, but later, a KAF representative returned the call just before noon, reports stated.The EPD then reported the fish kill to the Emergency Response Network and the Environmental Protection Agency (federal) who sent a representative to test the waters.
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