Changes Coming to the Hatchery

In late March I went to a talk about the Shenandoah River and the efforts being made to remediate damage that was done to it by industry many years ago. DuPont Chemical has agreed to a $50 million dollar plan to help improve the river and bring back some portion of the commerce and recreation that were lost to this pollution.

Mercury was released from 1929 to 1950 at a DuPont fiber production plant in Waynesboro and was found in the river in the 1970s, leading to years of corrective measures, monitoring and warnings about tainted fish. (I have posted a little about this before.) Not only were more than 100 miles of river affected, but unsafe levels remain even now. A different kind of pollution (PCBs) from Avtex Rayon in Front Royal complicated efforts to clean up the river but that has been addressed separately.

"Riverkeepers" provides details on the Dupont agreement so I just want to mention the planned improvements to our local Fish Hatchery. The goal is to provide more smallmouth bass to the river and bring fishermen back. 

It seems a shame that the people who depended on fishing for their livelihood before the pollution will not really benefit from the settlement, since so many years have passed. Those people have either died or retired.

This is a post about fish but I don't have any pictures of river fish to show you. In order to not completely disappoint those who love seeing critters, here is a pet fish that we had for a while. His name was Patrick.

The hatchery today is a modest place, rather dated. See also my 2015 post.

This closing picture is one I took several years ago when we spotted goslings at one of the ponds there.