Pollution kills 9,500 young salmon at Washington hatchery

EDMONDS (Wash.) -- Storm water runoff is believed to be the cause of pollution that killed about 9,500 young salmon at a hatchery on Willow Creek last week.

Preliminary tests failed to find that any gasoline, chemicals or other illegal dumping might be to blame, said Larry Altose, a spokesman for the state Department of Ecology.

Urban stream experts say it's common for fish kills to occur when a heavy downpour follows a long dry period, which is what happened in the Willow Creek watershed recently.

"There's a lot of rooftops, asphalt and driveways around Willow Creek," Tom Murdoch, executive director of the Everett-based Adopt-A-Stream Foundation, told The Herald of Everett.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=6420&slug=WA%20Salmon%20Kill

Hmmm, while it is a very disasterous event, just imagine if all those hatchery salmon escaped into the wild and bred with the wild salmon. Their offspring wouldn't last very long because they wouldn't be able to find food or live their natural migratory lifestyle.

The wild ones are being overfished, and now this... :cry: