Fish kill confirmed
Staff from three departments investigating in Campbellton incident
For the second time in less than a year, the crew with the Roseville-Miminegash Watersheds Inc. is dealing with a fish kill in one of its streams. The co-ordinator of the Watersheds group, Danny Murphy, said he received an anonymous call Sunday morning of a fish kill in Campbellton. Murphy said he immediately drove to the identified location along the Coughlin Road, confirmed the caller’s information, and reported it to the Fish and Wildlife section’s hotline.
Provincial Fish and Wildlife department officials were on the scene Sunday and started the cleanup. Murphy said his crew assisted with the clean-up on Monday, but he did not have
a count on how many dead fish were recovered.
The clean-up was completed around 2:30 p.m. on Monday.
Water, soil, vegetation and fish samples have been collected
and sent for testing. The investigation into the fish kill involves staff from Forest, Fish and Wildlife division of the Department of Environment, the Investigation and Enforcement Division of Justice and Public Safety, and Environment Canada. Murphy said he found fish dead Sunday morning on both sides of the concrete culvert where a small brook crosses the Coughlin Road.
He said the stream was subsequently checked both upstream from the bridge and downstream to where the brook spills into the Northumberland Strait at Campbellton Beach.
It was his understanding, he said, that the majority of the dead fish were found upstream from the bridge. Where the brook crosses Route 14, just before arriving at Campbellton Beach, is just four kilometres up the road from where a fish kill was discovered in the Little Miminegash River in Roseville last August.