Thursday, July 21, 2011

Ash from Wallow Fire killing fish in Gila River

Consultant Frank Hayes presented general background information on the Wallow Fire. The Wallow fire, Arizona's largest, left behind large amounts of ash deposits and other debris. In some places, there could be as much as one foot of ash on the ground, which can wash into streams, rivers and creeks during storms, Hayes said. Hayes, a retired ranger from Clifton, said, “It is two to three years that you're going to have ash moving, but again, it will depend on the amount of rainfall that you have. It could depend on the number of hailstorms you have; you know, if you have a major hailstorm or two, it will move debris downslope.” Ash is flowing into the Gila watershed. On July 5, ash was first detected in the San Franciso River near Clifton. The San Francisco River flows into the Gila River, and ash flowed into the Gila Box on July 13. The ash in the rivers has begun to kill many of the fish in the area. Deborah Mendelssohn, who recently tested the San Francisco River and the Blue River, said, “We're in a very preliminary stage at this point, but we are seeing in the San Francisco the E. coli numbers are going off the charts, so we actually don't know how much E. coli there is in the water because it exceeds our maximum measurement.”...more

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