A week after 60 dead fish were discovered at Dunkard Creek in Monongalia County, the water still flows rusty, reddish and brown in parts of the creek.
Jesse Graham lives about 50 yards away from Dunkard Creek near the small community of Pentress.
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He says the creeks never looked like this.
Graham drove to another section of the creek close to his home where it was easy to spot and smell decaying fish. Graham counted as many as 24 dead fish in and around the creek.
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The Department of Environmental Protection and the Division of Natural Resources are investigating the fish kill and trying to determine the cause.
DNR Biologist Frank Jernejcic says the color of the water may give some clues as to what happened.
“The first impressions would be something related to mining, because many mine drainages have a rusty color because of the iron sediments,” he said.
“Another cause of a rusty or brown color would be just sediment, muddy water from silt from some type of source.”
The western area of Monongalia County has a history of mining and the industry continues to operate in the area today, but nothing has been determined.
“Could be anything from any type of pollutant from any type of industrial activity,” Jernejcic said, “even transportation, truck accidents, things like that cause spills or some pollutant to get into the stream.”
“We’ve got several agencies investigating it, and we do want to determine what’s happening over there,” he said, “we don’t want a reoccurrence.”
The DNR also found dead mussels and salamanders in the creek.
Jernejcic believes whatever killed them and the fish has probably moved on.
“The timing of the kill and the duration that we saw dead fish indicated that it occurred over a period of several days or so,” he said, “and then gradually became less toxic upstream and moved down toward Pennsylvania.”
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The DEP took water samples from the creek.
DEP’s spokesperson Kathy Cosco says the results from the samples are a first step in figuring out what happened.
“It’s a piece of the puzzle that we think may help us determine that,” she said.
“We’re not at a point yet that we can conclusively say here’s the source.”
Jesse Graham says he is looking forward to hearing the results.
“I would like to find out who did it, and I would like to be sure that steps are taken so it doesn’t happen anymore,” he said.
The DEP hopes residents will continue to reach them if they see more fish kills in the area.