Gilroy
– Famed garlic grower Christopher Ranch is the lead suspect in a
wastewater spill that turned a stretch of Uvas Creek into a
graveyard of fish, according to a state fish and game warden.
Gilroy – Famed garlic grower Christopher Ranch is the lead suspect in a wastewater spill that turned a stretch of Uvas Creek into a graveyard of fish, according to a state fish and game warden.
Roughly 1,000 dead fish – including about 10 endangered steelhead trout – were discovered over the weekend floating an eighth of a mile downstream of a culvert leading from the ranch, according to Kyle Kroll, warden for the California Department of Fish and Game.
“It’s going to take more investigation, but it looks like it’s human error and someone left a valve open that bypassed a recycling water program,” Kroll said, adding that Christopher Ranch has an effective wastewater removal system. No dead fish were found upstream of the culvert, which officials traced back to storm drains on the property of Christopher Ranch, along Uvas Creek southeast of Gilroy.
“It’s kind of hard to tell but it appeared to be garlic,” Kroll said of the pollutant. “It had a strong odor and burned the eyes, kind of like an onion.”
Steelhead trout are highly sensitive ocean fish that spawn in creeks and rivers before traveling back down the Pajaro River to Monterey Bay. Kroll estimated that the steelhead were the first die, potentially 24 to 48 hours before the spill was discovered Saturday morning around 11:30am.
The pollutants took a heavy toll since the creeks are running low this winter, said Kroll, explaining that a higher volume of water might have diluted the pollutants and spared some of the fish.
“We saw a foot-and -a-half, almost two-foot long sucker fish (that was dead),” Kroll said. “When it kills fish like sucker fish, you know it’s pretty bad because those are pretty hardy.”
Representatives for Christopher Ranch could not be reached before deadline. The family-owned company farms 4,000 acres of row crops, including bell pepper, garlic, ginger and shallots.
The dead fish were discovered by members of Coastal Habitat Education and Environmental Restoration. Volunteers of the nonprofit group have been working with federal environmental officials to monitor creek levels and report trouble signs. The federal National Marine Fisheries Service was worried that the dry weather might strand fish by causing a disconnect between Uvas Creek and the Pajaro River, explained CHEER co-founder Herman Garcia.
He and other volunteers found nothing amiss earlier in the week, but were shocked to when they arrived Saturday at the intersection of Old Bolsa and Bloomfield roads, southeast of Gilroy.
“There were suckers, blue gills, bass, pickleback, carp, steelhead trout, pike,” said Garcia, who has spent much of his life fishing local streams. “It killed everything including the aquatic plant life like moss.”
State fish and game officials are testing the fish and creek water as part of the investigation into Christopher Ranch. The agency will decide today if clean-up is necessary, or if expected rains will clear away remaining contaminants. Kroll said criminal or civil penalties are possible.
