FYI,
More about this can be found in this week's edition of the South Hill Enterprise with photos.

A conservation project to benefit migrating waterfowl by Dominion Power resulted in over 10,000 fish (they say mostly forage) to be killed and hauled to the Brunswick County landfill last week in the vicinity of the Steel Bridge area on Lake Gaston known to anglers as "the flats". A spokesman for the Dept. of Environmental Quality said "scale-wise, this was a pretty large fish kill."

Thanks for letting us know, that really sucks, I wonder what caused it? My guess is it had something to do with the oxygen/how they ran Kerr dam.

It was an intentinal draw-down of the flats. I noticed that a couple of the creeks near the steel bridge were dammed up this past winter. They effectively dammed up the flats, and then let it dry up, or pumped it dry. Unfortunate, since it was a major largemouth spawning area some years, depending on flow out of Kerr.

It's my understanding that wetlands have been protected for years in Virginia and yet they stated that the lost of wetlands has dropped the population down? That seems a little odd to me.
Also, isn't the real major issue with wetlands really in Canada and not in the US? I mean, to my understanding the breeding grounds are in Canada. If we continue to build wetlands here, won't the water fowl start staying in this area and not follow their natural path? More and more geese are staying in the area already and once they start it's imprinted into them.

Here is the news article on the fishkill:
http://www.vancnews.com/articles/2007/06/29/lake_gaston/news/news01.txt

Here is a summary of the license. Section 3.1 is the best summary of what's going on. I find myself missing any amount of information necessary to develop a big picture on this but key in this article is that the project was under governance and ultimate operation by VDGIF.
http://www.dom.com/about/companies/ncpower/pdf/waterfowl_plan_050806.pdf

Here is the approval of that plan. Here you can register for free and read many details about the plan.
http://www.allbusiness.com/government/3708707-1.html

Here we see Dominion complaining about the amount of VDGIF support:
http://www.dom.com/about/companies/ncpower/pdf/waterfowl_plan_app2.pdf

From all this I see Dominion being required to drain this area to renew a license and capping their expense at $100k. I see VDGIF signing on to operate the pumps. I cannot see if VDGIF was running the pumps that caused the photo in the first link. I see duck hunting legislation being the driving force behind all this.

When I put the picture in the first post with the marketing of same article saying, "While damaging and unexpected, Cholko said that the incident wasn't a major ecological event. The fish that were lost were forage fish and not trophy fish, and Dominion Power would have the opportunity to either pay for the fish or restock the lake." I do not hear a call for fines, I do not hear a broad complaint from the fishing community in Gaston, I cannot find where Dominion is putting forth a plan to pay for nor replentish the fish. I'd say that this wheel currently isn't very squeaky. Maybe a lot is going on we're not hearing about..jfo

I can assure you that the long term effect is greater than will be discussed by those involved. For those familiar with the area, its the first creek on the right as you go upriver from the steel bridge. You may have noticed the steel wall that was erected to cut off flow. It was, for the most part, a very large, shallow flat. The feeder creeks that fed it from the river were rather substantial habitat also. Interesting that waterfowl interest was greater than the sportfishing interest.

For the information of anyone who might like to voice their concern here, the highest escalation available within the VDGIF will be the board meeting.

The next board meeting with a public comment on non-agenda items will be: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 9:00 AM at 4000 W Broad St. Richmond, VA 23230. Board Secretary Beth Drewery at (804) 367-9149 or by email at beth.drewery@dgif.virginia.gov. would be your contact.

Personally, I would recommend contacting Mike Cholko, pollution response coordinator for VDEQ and Vic Dicenzo of VDGIF in order that you get the correct and complete story prior to your decision to comment to the VDGIF Board.

Mr Cholko's contact information is: CHOLKO, MICHAEL F — (434) 582-6036 mfcholko@deq.virginia.gov

Mr Dicenzo's contact information is: DICENZO, VICTOR J — (434) 392-9645 vic.dicenzo@dgif.virginia.gov

There was alot of facts that weren't published I have pics showing mostly game fish. Big cover up here!

Squeaky wheel gets grease! Maybe email your pix to DEQ & VDGIF and ask what the "remedial" action plan is. Since a picture is worth a thousand words....get your pix entered into public record with your documented complaint. I don't want to stir something here that has no support but to me the best defense against a repeat is a firm pushback from anglers and community...jfo

Email me those pics...I live here near Richmond and plan on attending that meeting just to see what is being said or done.


bassnva123@comcast.net

Guys from all my experience I can tell you that the duck hunters have deeper pockets. It can be very political I assure you. I love to fish that area and can only hope as ya'll do that the problem will be addressed in a timely fashion.

Bo

I sent a note over to Mr Cholko in DEQ asking status and he wrote back today referring my request to: Mr William Hayden. Mr Hayden is at (804) 698-4447 or wphayden@deq.virginia.gov. He also works in DEQ, Richmond. We'll see if there's any new news...jfo

It's nice to know that the meeting is scheduled for 9:00 am so we all can attend that are working during the day! :-(

Things like this should have meetings held in the evening so that it gives most of us a chance to attend it. OR maybe that's what they want????!!!

FYI,

WRIC-TV in Richmond and WPTM Radio in Roanoke Rapids this morning released a statement issued by Dominion Power regarding the fish kill.....they DID NOT say forage fish in their statement but did say 6500 fish were killed due to a failed conservation project as a result of draining part of Lake Gaston and did not mention anything about re-stocking.

mobass, do you have a link to the Dominion release? I could only find an article coming out tomorrow. It'd be nice to see the actual release...jfo
http://www.littletonobserver.com/index.html

JFO - I do not have a copy of the actual release..would also like to see it. I did contact the Sports Editor of the Richmond Times Dispatch last week about this failed project....he did some research ...and there is an article on the front page of today's Richmond Times Dispatch about the fish kill and whether this could have been avoided. The article clearly says catfish, carp, sunfish were killed. The writer's name is: Lee Graves (804) 649-6579.

The ducks unlimited crowd talked the NC Wildlife guys into turning about 1/2 of durham county into "waterfowl habitat" by flooding some really good deer habitat. Durham was messed up anyway, but now we have a big old swamp full of nothing but mosquitoes.