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EXCERPTS FROM THE INLAND ENVIRONMENTAL REPORT:

April 10, 2019 - 00:00
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A possible source for black material or sludge found in Skull Creek downstream of Inland Recycling, approximately a half mile is the anaerobic process that is found in the bottom of water bodies or ponds where decaying septic sludge of decomposing fish, animals, plants, fertilizer, and algae, insects, and animal wastes undergo decay by bacteria to produce black anaerobic sludge,” the report states.

The bottom of a pond or slow-moving water holding area provides a storage area where anaerobic bacteria slowly stabilize organize matter.

The report goes on to state “This activity of anaerobic digestion produces black anaerobic bacteria sludge that has a septic and chemical smell that can be disturbed and raised up in the water by methane, hydrogen gas, or carbon-dioxide to aerobic sections which can result in oxygen reduction and a fish kill or other septic or chemical odors.

This process can occur where skull creek water flow slows in a wide section such that the creek becomes a pond or lagoon type body of water with a limited inlet and outlet flow.

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A second possible source of the floating black material in Skull creek is black looking algae. There is a form of blue-green algae that appears black that can look like oily scum with a pigpen odor called Floating Cyanobacteria. They can regulate buoyancy and migrate through the water column. Some specias produce toxins called microcystis that can be lethal to fish. The most common type forms ireregularly shaped colonies that appear black….

Runoff from fertilized fields, pastures, feedlots, septic tanks and leach fields accelerate nutrient loading.

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The black material found in Skull Creek may be natural from one of the two listed sources, or a product of both natural sources. During an investigation of the black material on 3/27/19 in Skull Creek, it was determined that the material is a solid and not a aterial dissolved in the water of Skull Creek….A sample of the water with black material was passed through filter paper that retained any solids above 11 microns in diameter…It was also observed in the lab that the majority of the black particles over time settled to the bottom of the sample jar. If the material was a typical oil material, all of the particles would float to the top of the water in the sample jar.