ENTERPRISE, Minn. – Three state agencies asked for public help to identify why 2,500 fish went belly-up in Rush Creek. The leading theory blames arm contaminants that were washed into the creek by heavy rains on July 23. Natural sources have been pretty much ruled as the root cause. The fishkill was unnoticed until three day after the July 23 storm. Rush Creek has headwaters in farmland west of Lewiston. The Creek flows south 18 miles through Enterprise, just off Interstate 90, and on to the Root River at Rushford. The area is dotted with makeshift earthen dams that farmers have built over the past 150 years to water their livestock. There also are factory-scale feedlots, dairy farms and pig-breeding facilities in the creek’s upper reaches. The fishkill was mostly trout, but Rush Creek also has lampreys, sunfish, sculpins, daces and johnny darters. Investigating besides MCPA, the state Agriculture and Natural Resources departments.
A wending kill zone. Looking downstream all the way to Rushford.
Unhappy campers: Trout anglers
> 2006: An estimated 10,000 fish in the Long Lake backwater along the Mississippi River south of Trempealeau. Cause: Extreme hjot weather dissolved oxygen that fish, as well as aquatic plants, need to survive.
> 2015: Am estimated 10,000 fish in the Crystal Springs area of the South Branch of the Whitewater River near Elba. Cause: Sudden and short-lived toxicity from human-made insecticides and contaminants carried by swollen water levels.
> 2019: An estimated 1,500 fish in Garvin Brook near Farmers Park between Lewiston and Stockton. Cause: Sudden and short-lived toxicity from agricultural and sewage contaminants carried by swollen water levels.