Massive Chattahoochee River fish kill under investigation by multiple agencies
The Chattahoochee Riverkeeper warned Friday of a massive fish kill stretching at least 20 miles on the Chattahoochee River near the city of Atlanta, likely connected to heavy rains that caused flooding this week.
Despite the severity of the fish kill, Riverkeeper’s testing Saturday indicated the water is not harmful to humans. Still, the organization is advising people to avoid the river between Atlanta and West Point Lake near LaGrange until more is known.
Jason Ulseth, the Riverkeeper’s executive director, estimated there are thousands of dead fish in the river and called it the worst fish kill he’s seen in his 20 years with the organization.
“We have not seen anything like this before,” Ulseth said Friday.
He said the fish kill begins just south of where Peachtree Creek runs into the Chattahoochee near Vinings. Ulseth stressed the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, a popular destination on holiday weekends like Memorial Day, is farther upstream and unaffected.
On Saturday, Ulseth said test samples from the area showed the river was “surprisingly free of pathogens” and that E. coli levels were low. He also pointed out that a long-running drought has made the Chattahoochee vulnerable to conditions that could cause a fish kill.
Georgia Environmental Protection Division spokesperson Katie Bloomfield confirmed the agency was alerted to the fish kill Friday morning and was working with state and local partners to access the area.
“This is an ongoing investigation,” Bloomfield said.
The EPD, Riverkeeper and Atlanta’s Department of Watershed Management are conducting that joint investigation, work that will continue through Memorial Day weekend, a DWM spokesperson told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Saturday. The department does not expect the first test results to be available until Tuesday or Wednesday.
In a Friday news release about the incident, the department said Commissioner Greg Eyerly and Deputy Commissioner Quinton Fletcher had met with Ulseth to look into the incident.
“The investigation remains ongoing, and DWM is committed to providing accurate information and transparent updates as findings become available,” Eyerly said in a written statement. “Protecting the health of our waterways and the communities that depend on them remains one of our highest priorities.”
DWM added that it was not yet clear what killed the fish. Ulseth, however, said he suspects it’s connected to the heavy rains that drenched Atlanta on Wednesday, causing severe flooding in pockets of the city.
According to the National Weather Service’s Peachtree City office, parts of Atlanta received 2-3½ inches of rain Wednesday, with some areas receiving 1½ inches in just 30 minutes.
Ulseth said Saturday that Riverkeeper’s testing revealed a steep drop in the Chattahoochee’s levels of dissolved oxygen around the time of the flooding. Fish need dissolved oxygen to live, but treated wastewater released by management agencies tends to have low oxygen levels. The Chattahoochee, whose water levels were running very low thanks to drought conditions, received a sudden deluge of low-oxygen water from the systems upstream, leading the river’s dissolved oxygen to drop off a cliff, he explained.
The Riverkeeper team will need more information from Atlanta’s DWM and the state EPD to better understand the conditions they’ve seen on the Chattahoochee, Ulseth said. The organization already has plans to meet with the EPD and city officials Thursday, he added.
Atlanta’s largest wastewater treatment plant, the R.M. Clayton Water Reclamation Plant, is also in the area near where the fish kill starts. The facility is permitted to discharge as much as 100 million gallons of treated wastewater every day into the river.
In the past the facility has struggled to deal with heavy influxes of stormwater, leading to releases of sewage and other pollutants into the Chattahoochee.
The city also has been fined hundreds of thousands of dollars by state environmental regulators for the incidents in recent years. In February, Atlanta settled a federal lawsuit filed by the Chattahoochee Riverkeeper in which the group claimed the city had repeatedly released poorly treated sewage into the waterway.
Also Friday, the city of Atlanta issued a boil water advisory for downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. It was not immediately clear if the fish kill and the drinking water warning were connected. Officials said an internal power failure at the Hemphill Water Treatment Plant triggered the boil water advisory, which was lifted at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, according to the DWM.
A department spokesperson said Saturday that 25 samples were tested related to that incident within an 18-hour period, and all results came back clear.
“Sampling results have confirmed that no contamination was detected in the public water system,” the department said in a news release.
About the Authors
Drew Kann is a reporter at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution covering climate change and environmental issues. His passion is for stories that capture how humans are responding to a changing environment. He is a proud graduate of the University of Georgia and Northwestern University, and prior to joining the AJC, he held various roles at CNN.
Henri Hollis is a restaurant critic and food reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he covers Atlanta’s restaurants, chefs and dining culture. As part of the AJC’s Food & Dining team, he reviews new restaurants, reports on industry trends and explores metro Atlanta’s culinary scene through the neighborhoods and people that shape it.
