Any wildlife biologist out there

[Delw]

That has any knowledge of what the use in the fire retardent they use during forrest fires?
or any of you guys that have any knowledge in marine biology and had delt with this stuff.

Mt Miller, buzz, Ithaca, Idaho ron and some of you other guys?

Elkchsr maybe you have an idea?

we have a few big fish kills in AZ and the one that hit just last week was freaking huge. no one has any clue to whats going on except they are thinking its a green blue alge(but its hard to prove so I am told)

we have a few theroys (but looking for facts)on what happen and some questions about some other things as well.
this was a pic taken by a G&F friend at saguaro lake the other day. he went out yesterday and found lots more and lots of bigger fish. The whole lake looks like this.

Delw

 

[Oak]

Delw, here's a good article on the subject. Although the article doesn't mention it, I would assume that since retardant contains agricultural fertilizers, it could cause algae blooms like we see in the Gulf of Mexico (red tides).

Fire Retardant link
Red Tide link

Oak

 

[Delw]

Thanks OAk

we had redtide in washington state


Delw

 

[ELKCHSR]

I wouldn't be able to tell you on this one. I know from some of the classes I have been taking that they keep the environmentaly unfriendly stuff out of the foams and slury dumps. Don't mean every one does. Has there been any toxicology reports on this?
I would be extremely interested in what comes back.
That was a very good read, thanks for the link, I have been told in classes over the last three years, that the stuff in slurry mix's is nothing more than a certain type of clay that has been emulsified.
This will be a very interesting thing for me to pass around the circles to show what is actually in it.
I wouldn't be able to tell you if this is what killed your fish, I do know that if they are using some chemicals, it takes parts per million to kill fish. In stagnent waters, that doesn't take much at all.
Are there fires in this particular area?

 

[Delw]

Elkchsr


The fire was last year the rodeo.chediske fire/(think it was last year)


anyway all those drainages run down to the white river black river ,saltriver then into roosevelt lake, which in turn starts the salt chain lakes that are dammed roosevelt lake , apachelake, canyon lake, then saguaro lake where teh fish kill was.

Apache lake suffered a few fish kills this year and the water is root beer brown, canyon suffered 2 and saguaro suffered 3-4, roosevelt suffered NONE.

during the fall(our rainy season) the north eastren half of the state where the fire was got hammered, which in turn washed all the ash and residue from the retardant into roosy, roosy was like mud for a few months(now crystal clear). They normally dont open the roosevelt dam due to the lake is never full or even close , but they let 100-400cfm out occasionally.

When they did this they had a huge fish kill at apache, (this was the first of many)G&F are not certain if its bluegreen alge or not yes.but are leaning towards it. and of course its problem is at the lower lakes now also. Apache stinks and smells up river pretty bad. but its not a fire type odor. That was last year after about 1-2 weeks of heavy rain.

Anyway here is a link where we are talking about it, some of the guys are G&F guys also. We havent gotten any test results back from G&F yet.

heres the link.

http://www.azbasszone.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=4826&start=0


Delw

 

[ELKCHSR]

Thanks Del, I will have to wait until this summer and when I run across any of the Bioligists, will make it a point to get any info I can out for you....

 

[whitedeer]

Delw.....The most commonly used mixtures can be toxic to fish, aquatic invertebrates, and algae, can harm rabbits, birds, and humans, and can reduce vegetative diversity and boost the growth of weeds. Slurries and foams are mostly water, but they also include ammonium fertilizer, detergent, and other ingredients such as a corrosion chemical inhibitor (sodium ferrocyanide). This particular chemical becomes more toxic when exposed to sunlight. It is my understanding that these chemicals are supposed to be phased out this year, but I doubt it.

 

[ELKCHSR]

Thanks Whitedeer...
I would suppose it is like any other chemical that we use today, when the chemical is phased out/banned, it is allowed to be used until the owners stock is exhasted. Rules probably haven't changed much on that since I took my chemical spray licence..

 

[cjcj]

Hey Delw i saw a piece on fox ch 10, and the game and fish guy said it was from the ashes from the fires cuasing the fish dieoff.

 

[Delw]

Gam and fish hasnt come out and said anything right off the bat. They are still unsure of what it was, some of us are thinking a big release of water from the canyon dam(which has no o2 since its comeing from the bottom of canyon lake) is what killed the fish. see the river that canyon dumps into(top end of saguaro) was the only thing hit. the water there is pretty cool and constantly has current.
The red green alge needs 77+ to thrive of water temp.

White deer thanks for the info.

CJ game and fish has no official word on this as of yet, the media has a way of putting words into peoples statements. matter of fact we will probally never know what happend however we can speculate.)not because of a cover up or anything but because alge toxis are hard to measure since there life span is usually 2-6 hours(this is what I read)

I will keep you all posted on what they find out.

Thanks again everyone
Delw

 

[ELKCHSR]

Thanks for all the good info guy's...

 

[Elkhunter]

This is pretty interesting Del. Hope they find out for sure what it is soon. Keep the information coming.