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Fish Kill Reported in Eastman Creek

Posted on: Wednesday, 2 November 2005, 00:00 CST

By S. Heather Duncan, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Nov. 1--EASTMAN -- A water quality activist reported a fish kill found Sunday in Roach Branch, an Eastman creek that has been the center of a sewage-treatment controversy.

James Holland, Altamaha riverkeeper, said he found "probably hundreds" of dead fish for two-thirds of a mile of the creek and a feeder stream near WPA Road.

"This is an extremely serious situation," Holland said. Toilet paper and fecal matter lined the creek bed downstream of a broken pipe behind 5648 Bacon Ave. in Eastman, he said.

Holland reported the dead fish to Doris Sanders, an environmental specialist with the Environmental Protection Division, who referred the complaint to state Department of Natural Resources' fisheries experts. They were checking the stream Monday afternoon, and Sanders said she plans to investigate it today.

The EPD is requiring the city of Eastman to stop releasing treated wastewater from the James Avenue plant into the creek because the creek is unhealthy.

Holland said the stream bank at the broken pipe appeared to have been buttressed by railroad cross-ties to hold up the bank where sewage was washing it away.

James Wright, Eastman city manager, said he thinks whoever installed the cross ties broke the clay pipe by driving a steel stake through it. Although broken, it didn't collapse enough to block the flow of sewage and it wasn't noticed, he said.

"Apparently in the past few days -- we're just guessing -- it totally gave way," Wright said. He said a resident reported the broken pipe Monday morning, and city crews fixed it.

Holland and some residents have argued that if the EPD had done more thorough testing, it would have found that pollution sources other than the James Avenue plant are worse. Holland's tests have shown this feeder stream to be extremely polluted for months.

Tests he conducted Sunday showed the water contained too little dissolved oxygen, which fish need for survival. He also found more fecal coliform bacteria above the sewage treatment plant than downstream of it. This led him to conclude the plant's wastewater, which contains some residual chlorine, is literally treating raw sewage out of the stream.

Local activist Sherry Jones, who has urged Eastman to fight the EPD about keeping the outfall at James Avenue, wrote in an e-mail, "The location of the sewage leak is one step in proving James Avenue isn't the problem."

Jones and some other residents have opposed removing the treated wastewater from Roach Branch partly because they think the proposed alternative, a sewage spray field off WPA Road, would be worse for neighbors and the environment.

It would also cost about $10 million to start, according to a report by Hofstadter and Associates, an engineering firm that works for the city of Eastman.

Wright said he expects to hear from the EPD whether the city will face any penalties for the sewage spill.

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Copyright (c) 2005, The Macon Telegraph, Ga.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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Source: The Macon Telegraph (Macon, Ga.)

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