Appleton River strikes Oil

[almontefisher]

So if anyone has watched the news latley they may have seen the peice about a fire a few months ago in Appleton where an old factory "mysteriously" burned down. Well a local resident was out walking his dog a few days ago and noticed a pool of oil on the ice in Appleton. After further investigation they found two old oil tanks had ruptured from the fire and oil has spilled out into the Miss river in Appleton... They say it is close to a few hundred gallons are in the soil and river system..well there goes a good fishing location ruined due to careless disposal of oil tanks. This is why you need to replace your tanks every 15 years so this will not happen. What do you think this will do to the fish and wildlife there. How long do you think it will take to remove and bring back to original quality??? Years I would say and this will travel all the way down stream to Almonte and further.

[Muskie4L]

Nature has a pretty good record of repairing itself. I'm no expert and I really don't know what I'm talking about but maybe a river will clean itself better than if it where a lake. either way it's not a good thing

[Dances With Fishes]

AF, is this spill above or below the power lines? The only derelic/burned out spot I know of is at the old mill right at the headwater to that section. It's not there is it?!!!??
DWF

[almontefisher]

Right by the hydro dam there is a decrepid building by the water..right up on top of the hill there is where the oil is coming from.

[Dances With Fishes]

That affects/ruins everything down river all the way to the town. By the way I mostly agree with bear, way too many rocks.
DWF

[nitro2000]

I work in Almonte...About 3 weeks ago we made a pot of coffee,and it had a slick on the surface. We started to truck in water from some out of town employees homes the next day, haven't had the slick since. Time to do a water test, me thinks.
Thanks for the info Almontefisher !

[YakAttack]

I fish the mississippi often. This is horrible. Who's Bear?

Nature has a pretty good record of repairing itself. I'm no expert and I really don't know what I'm talking about but maybe a river will clean itself better than if it where a lake. either way it's not a good thing

I'm not an expert either, but I don't think nature deals with oil very well regardless of whether it's a river or lake.

If we were talking about biological waste (like sewage), rivers generally clean themselves up better. They have higher oxygen content (esp. below rapids) which helps bacteria to eat the bio waste.

Sorry for off topic.

[DonD2]

Back in the late 60's, I worked in that textile mill (Appleton) while going to school. you think a couple hundred gallons of oil is bad, they used to dump diesel fuel from the old boilers that heated the mill, along with the kettles of dye and chemicals into the bay..you could see a red, or green, orange slick rounding the point to the main river every 4 or 5 hours.
This slick would continue down river to Almonte where it met the old milk dumped from the local dairy in town...but we still fished, wouldn't eat anything though.

[matcole]

by law, when that place shut down, it should have had to remove the tanks and the oil

[Fisher Dude]

Really disappointing to hear!! So are you talking about where the boat launch is at Appleton?

[DonD2]

Yes at the launch...If you look out on to the bay, to your left there is the falls, and past that is an old pump house, I think its still there. there were oil tanks up above the pump house to supply the boilers for the mill

[almontefisher]

That shack is still there Don...lookin pretty bad though.

[Bear]

Man, this is not good news at all

BTW, scott_from_the_shoreline

Hello

Bear

[Fishhawk]

It's bad enough that a lot of smallies at Appleton already have a lump sticking out just down from their gill.

Three eyes will be the next feature.

[Bass assassin]

This royally sucks...that is one of my favourite spots.

BA