The Iowa DNR continues to investigate a fertilizer spill at the New Cooperative near Red Oak that has moved down the East Nishnabotna River.
DNR environmental specialist Brent Martens says the approximately 15-hundred tons of liquid nitrogen fertilizer is the biggest spill he knows of in the southwest Iowa area. They started to notice the impact Wednesday. “We observed high ammonia levels in the Hamburg area and spoke with officials with the Missouri Fisheries Department and advise them of what we were seeing there. They were able to view the river at Hamburg and they were going to start mobilizing their units,” he says. Martens says they found the first dead fish about one-half mile south of the spill and on from there down the river.
Martens says the there isn’t much they can do to get the material out of the river. “Even though we’re in a drought, it’s still too big to do anything with the nitrogen in there,” Martens says “Also it doesn’t separate like a petroleum product in the water. So it’s in the whole water column and we can’t skim it off the top or anything.” The D-N-R is encouraging private well owners in Montgomery, Page, and Fremont counties with wells near the East Nishnabotna River to contact their county health department for a free test of their wells. Martens says it’s simply a precaution. “We are hoping is that the ammonia plume that is going down the river will be just going past those places and not seeping all the way back to those wells,” he says. Martens says they don’t believe there are any water users drawing directly from the river.
Martens told Radio Iowa late Thursday they were still investigating and then will determine if there are any charges filed in connection with the spill. “I’m still looking into the effects of it in the water. Our Fisheries Bureau is out looking at the fish and getting a count on those, what the size and species is, and Missouri we’ll be doing the same, and potentially Nebraska will be it on that as well,” he says. “There’s a small piece of the Nishnabotna I believe that goes through Nebraska for a very short time, but then if it makes it into the confluence of the Missouri, Nebraska will be in on it at that point.”
Martens says it looks like a valve was maybe left open or not repaired all the way and that allowed the fertilizer to leak out.