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Welcome to the home page of Riverwood's taxpayers. Here you can find the latest information about the heated issue of the fish kill effecting all members of this small riverside village in the United States. Above are links to the issues affecting our town. Please feel free to visit them.
One week ago, Mayor Edward Cisko declared a town emergency shutting off all water to the town. The alarm was over a fish kill in the town's Snake River. Two students of Riverwood High School, Chad Wong and Jane Abelson, alerted their teacher of dead fish floating in the river. With their biology teacher, Mary Steiner, they informed County Sanitation Commission about the issue. |
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Town officials took the safest coarse of action and shut off the water supply. It has been off for three days. In the mean time local citizens were trucked water from the nearby town of Mapleton 64 km away. Schools were closed on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday due to the lack of water. The town's most importation money revenue source was cancelled, the annual fishing contest. Many local business owners were very disappointed.
To ensure the safety of the water, Chief Engineer Hal Cooper conducted many water tests and no toxic substances have arisen. State EPA scientists were also called in to investigate.
In the end, the scientists concluded that the |
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problem was "gas bubble disease." This disease is the result of supersaturated water with oxygen and nitrogen. When fish take in this water, gas bubbles form due to the high amounts of gas in the water. These gas bubbles block the gills from working properly and cause the fish to die within a few hours to a few days. This supersaturated water was the result of the local dam releasing large amounts of water due to the unnaturally wet spring. A defect in the dam caused this problem.
Tonight, Mayor Cisko has called a town meeting discussing the local issue. Scientists, local citizens, the water company, engineers, and chamber of commerce members will discuss the problems and how they can be fixed. I hope everyone attends. |
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