Fish kill extends 20 miles

— Teams of Arkansas Game and Fish Commission employees on Friday determined the dead drum fish now cover a 20-mile section of the Arkansas River.

Commission spokesman Keith Stephens now says it’s likely to be hundreds of thousands of fish that died, probably from a disease. An official estimate of how many fish died is expected Monday, Stephens said.

The seven teams in boats that hit the water Friday determined the affected area goes much further downstream than first thought, reaching the Arkansas 109 bridge near Clarksville, Stephens said.

The commission first learned Wednesday night that thousands of fish had died in the river between the Ozark-Jeta Taylor Lock & Dam near Ozark and the Roseville community boat ramp, a distance of about six miles.

The boat ramp is about 14 miles upstream from the Arkansas 109 bridge.

Stephens said the teams were able to recover some sickened-but-still living drum, one of the goals of Friday’s assessment. Those fish will be sent for testing at a laboratory at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, Stephens said.

Almost all of the fish that died were drum, a species that’s not sought by the state’s fishermen.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality determined Thursday that river pollution wasn’t the cause of the fish kill.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 13 on 01/01/2011

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