Trout Stream vs Sewer Plant?

West Virginia's Elk River might just become home to a 1.5 million gallon per day waste water treatment plant to support the Snowshoe Mountain Resort area. The plans for the plant put it in the middle of the Elk River's flood plain.

The Elk River is famous for its remote and uncorrupted waters, as well as its remarkable geological nature. Four miles downstream from the confluence of Old Field Fork and Big Spring Fork, the Elk River itself disappears into the limestone-laden ground where it flows in secret for some 5 miles before uprising again through the Elk Springs—a series of large springs that provides cold water to a well-known trout hatchery nearby.

Read about the project and its issues via 8RiversSafedevelopment.com. Any readers with knowledge about this area feel free to comment.

West Virginia Fish Kill

Photo via MineralWellsIndex.com

Reports indicate that a speeding fuel truck is responsible for a massive fish kill on Elkhorn Creek in McDowell County, West Virginia. The truck spilled over seven thousand gallons of fuel onto the creek's banks. This quote from an article by Charles Owens of the Bluefield Daily Telegraph pretty much says it all.

"Noe said officials with the Department of Natural Resources were still working Wednesday evening to determine the extent of the fish kill.“Everything is pretty much dead,” Noe said of the aquatic life in the affected area. "

Ironically the river was once used to wash coal from area mines and was so polluted for much of its history that many people thought that trout could never survive there. Internet lore has it that in the 70's a stocking truck broke down and dumped its contents into the creek creating the trout population that was thriving there until yesterday. We can only hope it bounces back yet again.