LAGOON FISH KILL: CHLORINE APPARENTLY THE CULPRIT

Hundred of gallons of concentrated chlorine spilling from a drain at the Capaha Park swimming pool was responsible for killing hundreds of fish last week in the park's lagoon.

Cape Girardeau Park Superintendent Dan Muser said that after workers collecting the dead fish from the lagoon's banks reported a chlorine smell from the water the drain was checked for leaks.

He said "concentrated chlorine leftover from last summer" had spilled into the lagoon from a broken valve in a drain in the pool's pump room.

Pool maintenance supervisor Jim Cooper said at least 800 gallons of the chemicals spilled into the lagoon before the leak was found.

He said the chlorine had been setting in the drain since the pool closed last fall. The chemicals had settled at the bottom of the drain where the leak occurred, and what leaked into the lagoon was extremely concentrated, he said.

Cooper said he and other pool workers visit Capaha Pool infrequently while it is closed during the winter, and had assumed that because several months had passed, the chemicals, even if they had leaked into the lagoon, would no longer be harmful.

He said all drains at the pool are set up to flow into the lagoon except for the pool's sewer drain.

"Since the pool was built, the water has always been dumped into the lagoon," Cooper said. "By the time the pool is ready to be emptied, there is usually not much chlorine left. In this case, we didn't think the chlorine was still good."

He said chlorinated water from the pool regularly leaks into the lagoon when the pool is open, but normally not in large amounts.

Dead fish were first spotted floating in the lagoon last Wednesday, and city workers spent Thursday scooping hundreds of them from the lagoon's banks.

When questioned last week, Muser said it was not known what killed the fish. He said the lagoon has had previous "bacterial" problems, but the fish could have been killed by poor oxygen content in the water or even unseasonably warm weather.

Water samples from the lagoon were sent last week to the Missouri Department of Conservation for tests. On Monday Muser said the tests were not completed, but he was "99 percent sure" it was chlorine from the pool that killed the fish.

"We just put two and two together," Muser said. "That's the only way the chlorine could have gotten in the lagoon."

When the valve was fixed, Muser said, "no more dead fish were found."

Muser said chemical-filled water from the pool has spilled into the lagoon before, but never in a large enough quantity to kill the fish.

Cooper said the leak was fixed as soon as is was found.

Muser said there is still a large number of fish in the lagoon, which is a favorite summertime fishing spot for youngsters.

"We didn't loose all the fish," Muser said. "Some of the fish we lost were the weaker ones. Under stressful conditions, the weaker ones die and the stronger ones live.

"There was a tremendous amount of fish in that lagoon and there still is."

There are no plans to restock the lagoon, he said.