Hundreds of fish found dead in area pond

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This article was published 04/04/2012 (5169 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A North Kildonan couple is questioning the condition of a pond near their home after making a grisly discovery.

Glenn and Terry Sparling, whose house backs onto a retention pond north of the Chief Peguis Trail extension, say they noticed a number of dead fish floating on the water two weeks ago.

“Our biggest concern was someone dumped something in the pond, and it flows into the Red River,” Terry said.

“With the ducks and geese coming back we wanted to know what was going on.”

Glenn said he found carp, jack, sauger, and bullheads along the shore behind their home.

The couple has lived in the house for more than 30 years and say this is the first time they ever witnessed anything like this.

“There’s always the odd dead fish that comes up from time to time, but not this much,” Terry said.

“There were hundreds of them, and they are still coming up,” Glenn added.

Glenn said he and his wife called the city about their concerns and workers were dispatched a short time later to clean up the fish from along the shoreline.

Susan Lambert, a waste water engineer with the city’s water and waste department, said the department has received calls concerning dead fish in six retention ponds throughout the city this spring.

Lambert said tests are still being completed, but the department doesn’t suspect outside contamination is the cause.

“This does happen typically at this time of year. Probably in a year we maybe get a half dozen calls concerning dead fish,” Lambert said.

“We get water entering the retention ponds from the runoff and it can occasionally happen after a large rainstorm event.”

Lambert said there are several possible explanations for the problem.

“It could be a result of lower oxygen levels in the pond because of the time of year,” she said.

“It could also be as a result of freshwater stirring up the bottom of the retention ponds and causing the organic matter to be stirred up.”

Glenn said he’s hoping the city can pinpoint exactly what happened to the fish.

“It’s all speculation, but we were thinking maybe something happened when they were constructing the Chief Peguis Trail extension,” he said.

“Maybe something spilled, or they hit a pipe they didn’t know about, but that’s just speculation.”

Now that the city is aware of the problem, the couple say they are hopeful something will be done to rectify it.

“I’m sure they’ll do sampling and look at the fish themselves. This just might be a freak of nature,” Glenn said.

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adrian.alleyne@canstarnews.com