State environmental officials say three separate manure spills are responsible for two fish kills in northwest Iowa’s Lyon County. Cindy Martens, an environmental services specialist with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, says runoff from two cattle operations near Doon combined to create the most serious manure spill, after two inches of rain fell on Saturday night.
Martens says staff members from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service were at the scene, counting dead fish. The fish kill covered about two miles of the waterway. She says the other spill happened last Friday in a tributary of the Rock River near Inwood.
She says that investigation was completed Monday and it was cleaned up with no significant environmental damage. Martens says the cause of that spill was misapplication of manure by a livestock producer.
Martens says it’s important that all spills be reported to the D-N-R as quickly as possible. The greater the delay between the event and the reporting, the less likely it is that the source of the pollution can be traced.
By Jerry Oster, WNAX, Yankton