Fish Kill Information
![FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE June 13, 2008 Contact:
Bill Hayden, DEQ
(804) 698-4447 wphayden@deq.virginia.gov
Julia Dixon, DGIF (804) 367-0991 julia.dixon@dgif.virginia.gov
Fish Kills Have Developed More Slowly in 2008, Virginia Reports
RICHMOND, VA. - Fish kills are occurring in Virginia rivers again this year but have developed more slowly than in past years, according to ongoing studies by the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. The severity of the kills in the Shenandoah River watershed may be more moderate this year, though fish kills in the upper James River watershed appear similar to those in 2007, the agencies reported today.
Fish kills and fish with lesions have been observed in the upper James River and some tributaries, including the Jackson and Cowpasture rivers. DGIF sampling on these rivers has confirmed recent anglers’ reports that 25 percent to 30 percent of fish have lesions.
There have been no problems reported on the mainstem Shenandoah River, though the upper North and South Forks of the Shenandoah have seen low numbers of affected fish this year. The sections of both forks that experienced kills in past years are reporting greatly improved catches this spring.
Though the fish kills each year apparently have followed the onset of warmer water temperatures during the spring, no cause for the fish deaths and lesions has been identified. The kills have not occurred after June in previous years. The Shenandoah River Fish Kill Task Force, chaired by DEQ and DGIF, began extensive investigations into the problem in 2005.
The number of kills began to increase this spring after stream temperatures rose in late May. Investigators have collected water and fish samples before and during the fish kills, and the same type of sampling has been conducted at other streams – in rivers with similar fish species but no fish kills. Laboratory processing of these samples may take several months.
Here is a summary of fish problems reported in 2008:
James River and tributaries
· The upper James River began showing signs of ailing fish in early April. Numbers of dead fish and fish with lesions – mostly smallmouth bass and sunfish – have increased since stream temperatures increased and stayed warm. Anglers are reporting that fishing remains slow, and many are seeing numerous dead fish on each trip. They also are seeing lesions regularly on the live fish they catch.
· For the first time, the Jackson River is experiencing fish kills. Anglers on the lower Jackson downstream of Covington are providing reports similar to those on the James. Fewer reports have been received from the Jackson than from the James, possibly because there are fewer fishermen on the Jackson.
· The Cowpasture River has generated fewer reports than last year, but the reports all include some lesions and dead fish.
· Craig Creek, a tributary of the James at Eagle Rock, has seen a small number of reports of dead fish and lesions. Fish kills have not been reported on this stream in past years.
Shenandoah River, and North and South Forks
· No problems have been reported this year on the mainstem Shenandoah River, downstream of Front Royal.
· Compared to past years, fairly low numbers of dead fish have been reported on the North and South Forks. Lesion rates of 10 percent to 20 percent have been reported in the past several weeks, primarily upstream of the Mount Jackson-Edinburg area on the North Fork and upstream of Elkton on the South Fork.
· Anglers on most sections of the Shenandoah are reporting excellent success and few fish with visible problems. In particular, the lower North Fork from Woodstock to the mouth is producing very good catches this year. The South Fork also is supporting excellent catches in areas that previously experienced fish kills. Sunfish and rock bass, whose numbers were reduced during the kills, appear to be recovering well.
To view the chart of reported fish kills click on the link here.... 2008 - Fish Kill Spreadsheet.pdf
DEQ and DGIF have set priorities for available funds and are coordinating a number of investigations this year. For example, studies in 2008 include sampling before, during and after fish kills in the rivers experiencing those problems. The investigation also is emphasizing rivers where fish kills have not occurred, expanded lists of chemical analyses with a focus on storm flows, and multiple fish health investigations.
The investigating agencies and the fish kill task force encourage the public to provide information on the location, number and type of fish found dead or sick in the Shenandoah and James river systems. Anyone with information is asked to call the DEQ regional office in Harrisonburg at (540) 574-7800, or toll-free in Virginia at 1-800-592-5482. Information also can be emailed to fishreports@deq.virginia.gov.

For Immediate Release
March 24, 2008
For further information, contact John Holmes at john.holmes@fnfsr.org or 703-963-1665
Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River
FINDS EVIDENCE OF CHEMICALS
THAT HARM FISH
The Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River has found evidence of chemicals in the river that may be causing intersex traits in male smallmouth bass and contributing to recent fish kills. The 59 specific chemicals identified in a report released by Friends today include herbicides, insecticides, pharmaceuticals, PCBs, and other manmade compounds. According to Ron Falyar, president of Friends, "Some of the chemicals identified through a monitoring program launched by Friends in the spring of 2007 have likely contributed to harming smallmouth bass in the river."
Over the past four years, the North Fork has had unexplained major kills of smallmouth bass, sunfish and suckers. Tissue studies of dead and dying fish indicate that their immune systems had been compromised. In addition, researchers found that nearly all male smallmouth bass in the North Fork exhibit intersex traits, with males developing eggs in their testes. Intersex has been linked to certain manmade organic chemicals that disrupt the normal functions of the endocrine system which regulates hormones.
With the presence of manmade organic chemicals implicated in both the fish kills and the intersex phenomenon, Friends set out to measure the level of organics chemicals in the river. The sampling, which was done in the spring and early summer of 2007, occurred during a significant fish kill. Friends deployed samplers at two locations in the North Fork, one near Woodstock and one near Mt. Jackson. The samplers were then sent to the United States Geological Survey's Columbia Environmental Research Center for analysis. A grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment and a matching grant from an anonymous foundation allowed Friends to pay for the chemical analyses.
While human health considerations were outside the scope of the Friends study, we believe that any potential risk that these chemicals pose may extend to the drinking water supplies in the Valley. Recent studies have shown that trace organics of the kind that the study found are going through water treatment systems and are present in public drinking water supplies for many US cities.
For further information on the results of the trace organics projects conducted by the Friends of the North Fork, please contact John Holmes, chair of the Friends Science Committee, at john.holmes@fnfsr.org or 703 963-1665.
click here for a full copy of the report.
Figuring out the fish kills
By: Lindsay Gibson
08/07/2007

Herman Lloyd on the Shenandoah with his day's catch in the 1950s.
Photos courtesy/Herman Lloyd
"We literally made our food budget with catfish
and trout and bass," says Herman Lloyd, reflecting
on life in Clarke County during the 1940s and 50s.
"In those days I was a school teacher making very
little, and...that's the way I went to the market,"
adds Lloyd, a former president of the Clarke County
Historical Association. "I would go home from work
up through the mountains and fish the trout streams."
Despite a miniscule annual salary of $2,000, Lloyd
managed to avoid starving because "the river was full of fish."
The past three years, however, have forced many longtime residents of Clarke County to question the Shenandoah's ability to sustain a healthy and diverse fish population.
John Holmes, who owns a cottage near Woodstock, describes himself as "one of the early observers" of the current wave of fish kills, which first surfaced in the spring of 2004 in the Shenandoah's North Fork.
For Holmes, life on the river has changed drastically since that time. "Five years ago, when I went down to the river...you'd see fish darting all over the place. It was just a matter of how big they were or how many you caught."
Today, though, "it's a different river. The fish just aren't there." Holmes has become heavily involved with the citizens' group Friends of the North Fork, but this commitment has also increased his contact with the kills. "Every spring, because I'm a monitor, I have to watch the fish die," often "covered with fungus."
"Before this happened," he continued, "I would fish every day of the summer. I would stand in the river, and my dog would stand in the river with me. Now I think twice about that."
The kills have also affected his long-term plans, he says: "I bought my house in Woodstock with an eye to retiring there. I've had to put all of that on hold."
Despite optimistic reports about spawning in past years, Holmes points out that "for the first time, it's now showing up in the James River." The situation, he feels, "is not getting better-it's getting worse."
For people who do not live on the river, however, "it's hard to know what's happening unless you're really tuned in," he says.
What, then, is happening? Since the massive fish kill in 2005 eliminated an estimated 80 percent of adult smallmouth bass and redbreast sunfish in the Shenandoah's South Fork, pressure on scientists to discover the source of the kills has mounted.
Steve Reeser, a district fisheries biologist with the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and co-founder of the Fish Kill Task Force, has been working on the fish kills since the very beginning. "We still have not found the smoking gun," he says, "the definitive cause or causes."
What makes it so difficult to shed light on the problems in the Shenandoah, he says, is that "they're not your classic fish kills."
Generally, fish kills fall into one of two broad categories: either "some sort of pollutant or toxic spill...from an effluent pipe," which kills indiscriminately and can usually be traced back to the source, or "some sort of disease outbreak," which tends to affect only "one species or one age class of fish" is at work.
The kills have taken a toll on multiple, but not all, species of fish, and while they have shown highly publicized lesions, "the pathogens that are causing the lesions and killing these fish-many of them have always been there," says Reeser.
Other natural stressors that could be contributing to the fish kills include "temperature increases in the spring, spawning in the spring, [and] increased turbidity."
These factors, however, have always been present. "These fish are being stressed by something else, and in this weaker state they're becoming susceptible" to preexisting disease-causing agents in their environment, Reeser believes.
"The $64,000 question," he says, is "What's this other stressor that's tipping them over the edge?"
"We've grouped two main theories of cause," he says.
A biological agent, such as a virus, may be responsible for weakening the resistance of the fish. "We still haven't been able to take that off the table," says Reeser. "How we've seen these fish kills move from river to river-that's sometimes how pathogens move."
This insight, however, only raises additional questions. "Are we dealing with a new pathogen that's evolved here? That's not a simple thing to determine," says Reeser. "We're looking at known viruses and pathogens," as well as using "the latest techniques to look for new viruses."
Chemical contaminants are the other broad category of potential causes. "You may have a certain chemical or compound that is found other places, too, not just in the Shenandoah," Reeser explains, "but here we have certain conditions [such as pH or temperature] that make the chemical more toxic."
"A lot of chemicals by themselves are fine," he adds, "but if you mix them all together, you can have some synergistic effects." In other words, "whenever a chemical is tested vigorously for years and years" and determined safe, testing processes often do not account for other chemicals which may be present within the watershed.
Or, as Reeser simplifies the issue, "they've never taken all those pharmaceuticals and all those chemicals and mixed them all together in a big tub," which is what happens when chemicals are used in homes, agriculture and development, and then washed into the waterways.
Another promising clue is that the kills occur "following major runoff events, rain events, mainly in the spring," suggesting a connection with non-point source pollution, says Reeser.
According to a report by professor Greg Garman of Virginia Commonwealth University's Center for Environmental Studies and Dr. Donald Orth of Virginia Tech's Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences, Reeser's opinions reflect the most up-to-date findings.
The report, submitted to Virginia's Department of Environmental Quality in January 2007, lists more than 20 potential causes for the fish kills.
Garman and Orth designate three theories as high priorities for future investigation:
1.) "Cumulative...effects of primarily agricultural chemicals and additives,"
2.) "immunosuppression in affected fishes, leading to infection by...opportunistic biological pathogen(s)," and
3.) "direct effects by unknown biological pathogen(s)."
In other words, either chemical compounds have built up past the threshold of tolerance for fish; or some agent, whether biological or chemical, has weakened the immune systems of the fish, which are being killed by secondary diseases (similar to the effects of HIV in humans); or a new disease is responsible for harming the fish directly.
Whatever the cause, Steve Reeser believes that "these fish kills are probably not going to go away" on their own. He points to concerned citizens as a "very helpful" force in "letting us understand the temporal and spatial extent" of the kills.
With future involvement of scientists, government officials and citizen volunteers, he hopes that we can alleviate the "black eye" that the fish kills have given to the Shenandoah's image.
Contact the reporter at lggibs@wm.edu.
©Times Community Newspapers 2007
Northern Virginia Daily
March 26, 2007
By Robert King
Daily Staff Writer
A local environmental group has placed monitors in parts of the Shenandoah River in an attempt to gather information about recurring fish kills.
Friends of the North Fork recently deployed eight monitors throughout parts of the river near Woodstock and Mt. Jackson.
The monitors are used to measure and obtain samples of trace organic chemicals, which the group will send to a laboratory to analyze.
The group hopes that the samples will be helpful in an ongoing investigation into a series of fish kills that have baffled scientists.
In spring 2004, officials first noticed large numbers of dead fish in the river. The kills have occurred every spring since then and usually affect two species, the red-breasted sunfish and adult smallmouth bass.
A state task force is trying to determine the cause of the fish kills.
The monitors would help the task force in examining trace organic chemicals, which may have played a part in the kills.
“The initial work on [dead, infected] fish indicate that their immune system has been compromised and a lot of the male bass are showing [an] inter-sex phenomenon,” said John Holmes, chairman of the group’s science committee and a member of the state task force. “The biologists think that may be related to exposure to organic chemicals but we don’t have data that they could look [at] and say here is the kind of chemicals that we are looking for.”
The group hopes the monitors would provide that data.
The eight monitors were assembled into four paired modules, with the modules split between the two locations in the river, Holmes wrote in an e-mail.
The modules will stay in place for six weeks, gathering trace organics. Then the group will pull them out of the river and freeze the samples. Once the samples are frozen, they will be shipped to a federal lab for analysis, Holmes said.
Four of the monitors are set up to retrieve non-polar samples and another four will retrieve polar samples.
“Polar means molecules charged on one end and not on the other,” Holmes said. “You need one device for each type because one device will not attract both.”
The group recently received additional funding from the Virginia Environmental Endowment for the monitors. The total budget for the project is more than $50,000.
A majority of the project’s expenses are for the laboratory analysis, Holmes said.
Friends of the North Fork is undertaking other measures to help officials investigate the fish kills.
The group is sampling water quality every two weeks “and take samples whenever there is a storm event because one of the issues is whether storms release pollution from the land,” Holmes said.
Group members are also keeping their eyes peeled for any dead fish.
“If any of our people are out and in the field and see dead fish or sick fish then they report that to the state and then the state sends out a team to collect the fish and the samples,” Holmes added.
Friends of the North Fork isn’t the only group that has been enlisted to help state officials obtain samples. Members of the task force have said that they would also rely on fishermen to notify them of any fish kills.
Holmes said that he hopes the data from the monitors will play a part in finding a culprit for the kills.
“This is one piece of that puzzle,” he said.
R Contact Robert King at rking@nvdaily.com
OUTDOORS:
Searching for answers to the North Fork Fish Kills
by: Lee Graves at the Richmond Times-Dispatch
Write Lee Graves at the Richmond Times-Dispatch, 300 E. Franklin St., Richmond, VA 23219, call (804) 649-6579 or e-mail outdoors @timesdispatch.com
John Holmes has a simple philosophy when it comes to gathering information.
"One set of data is better than none."
That outlook is propelling a proposal that could shed one more ray of light on why smallmouth bass and other species turned belly up in the North Fork of the Shenandoah River this year and in 2004.
Those fish kills are of more than casual concern to Holmes, Bud Griswold and Jack Lorenz. All live outside Woodstock on the North Fork. All are members of the Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River. And Holmes and Griswold are members of a task force formed in the wake of the most devastating of several kills, a jolt in 2005 that wiped out 80 percent of the adult smallmouth bass and redbreast sunfish on the South Fork of the Shenandoah.
There is no single smoking gun in these kills, or at least none that scientists have identified. That leaves a cloudy picture with numerous possibilities. Multiple stressors in the water leave the fish's immune system so weakened that any one of a number of hazards - pollutants, bacteria, fatigue from spawning - could prove fatal, many believe.
"It's a perfect storm of environmental hazards for fish," Griswold said.
Researchers also have found fish with characteristics of both sexes. Some male smallmouth bass had immature eggs in their testes. They say there's no correlation between these "intersex" smallies and the fish kills.
Exploring one trail brought the three men to Richmond recently. They hope to raise funds and awareness for a study that capitalizes on some cutting-edge technology.
Volunteers with the Friends group already take samples regularly to monitor water quality. Now, they want to see what's in the water another way.
They propose using two types of sampling devices that would be planted in the water for four to eight weeks. One features semi-permeable membranes that mimic the fatty tissue of fish and would measure what might be absorbed by fish in the river. Another also focuses on organic absorption but targets respiratory exposure.
Between the two, scientists could detect everything from herbicides and pesticides to hormones and illicit drugs that get dumped in the water, including "estrogenic compounds" that might be skewing sexual development.
A federal lab in Missouri would conduct the analysis. That's the most costly part of the proposal, which would total an estimated $50,000. They are seeking a grant through the Virginia Environmental Endowment.
Funds are key to solving the riddle of what's killing the fish. Last month, Gov. Tim Kaine freed up $150,000 in emergency funds to continue research in the short term. Holmes said the task force, which is led jointly by the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries and the state Department of Environmental Quality, needs $420,000 to sustain work in the coming year.
"We don't know what we will get out of the state legislature," Holmes said.
The men are concerned about long-term funding. Their project will be independent of the task force but will provide data that will benefit the research in Virginia and elsewhere.
"As nongovernment folks, there's a certain niche we can fill that they can't," Griswold said.
"Our only objective is to see how much more of the task force's work can be done," Holmes said.
The three bring some hefty credentials to the effort. Lorenz is a former executive director of the Izaak Walton League of America, an award-winning conservationist and a longtime outdoors writer. Holmes is an environmental engineer with a consulting business, and Griswold is a retired fisheries biologist who worked for the government and as a university professor.
They also are avid anglers, and the fate of the North Fork goes beyond science into the realm of days on the water with tight lines and high hopes.
"I've fished in 48 of the 50 states," Lorenz said. "And of all those places, the North Fork of the Shenandoah is where I picked to come fish when I retired."
Contact Lee Graves at outdoors@timesdispatch.com or (804) 649-6579.](Fish%20Kill%20Information_files/shapeimage_1.png)
John Holmes,
Science Committee Chair
Friends of the North Fork of the Shenandoah River
PO Box 746
Woodstock, VA 22664
540-459-8550
(if you click on our logo you can email us from there)