
DATE: Friday, July 25, 1997                 TAG: 9707250712

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PAUL CLANCY, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH                    LENGTH:   57 lines

``NUTRIENT BROTH'' FATAL TO FISH

George Stenke went out early Thursday morning to look over the rain-swollen lake behind his house and was startled by the sight: several hundred, perhaps thousands, of fish floating on the surface like discarded trash.

Lake Charles, a 35-acre freshwater impoundment in the Thoroughgood area off the Western Branch of the Lynnhaven River, had been hit by a sudden and devastating fish kill.

``I've been here since 1962 and this is the first time I've seen anything like this,'' Stenke said, looking out at a scene of fish carnage.

It was a shocking sight, but state and local officials were not surprised. High heat followed by sudden rains that wash organic matter from lawns and road surfaces can overwhelm the oxygen supply in small, shallow lakes and cause fish to die, they said.

``It creates a warm nutrient broth,'' said Frank J. Scanlon, manager of the Virginia Beach Office of Environmental Health.

``Every single year during the hot months we have fish kills,'' he said. ``I don't think there's any way to avoid having this happen.''

There was another contributor: clouds.

Roger K. Everton, environmental manager for the Tidewater Regional Office of the state Department of Environmental Quality, said most fish kills occur in the early morning on cloudy, hot summer days.

That's because algae blooms, which occur in water with high organic content, consume dissolved oxygen at night and replace it during sunny days, Everton said. But when it's cloudy for several days, oxygen isn't replaced and, all at once, fish die from suffocation.

Indeed, the surface of the lake was covered by dead fish of all sizes, mostly largemouth bass and catfish.

Scanlon said the city will remove dead fish when large numbers are present. He did not indicate that there was an immediate health problem.

A half-dozen workers from the city's Beach Management Office arrived with nets, trash cans and a small boat to begin the job of bagging the fish and carting them off.

The boat motor wouldn't start, however, and the workers finally shoved off with several borrowed canoe paddles just as rain began to pelt the lake.

Lake Charles was once an arm of Thoroughgood Cove, but became a freshwater lake many years ago when it was dammed, said Wayne Dize, who lives on the lake.

``Every once in a while you see one or two dead fish, but nothing of this magnitude,'' he said. ``It's catastrophic.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

CARCASSES COVER LAKE

IAN MARTIN/The Virginian-Pilot

Hundreds of dead fish floated to the surface of Lake Charles, a

freshwater impoundment in the Thoroughgood area of Virginia Beach,

on Thursday. Officials say lack of oxygen killed them.

VP MAP

FISH KILL