SNOHOMISH — It will be at least a month before the full effects of a large manure spill into French Slough and the Snohomish River are known, a state official said Wednesday.
No dead fish have been found in the slough or the river’s main channel and the water quality seems to be improving, said officials who visited the site Wednesday.
An earthen dike surrounding a cow manure lagoon at the Bartelheimer Brothers dairy farm southeast of Snohomish breached earlier this week. Nearly 21 million gallons of liquid waste were unleashed.
Much of it spread over part of the large dairy farm, which grows corn and hay on 600 acres to feed 750 cows. Some of the wastewater, however, spilled directly into French Slough, roughly 100 yards from the lagoon, and some got in through drainage pipes, officials said.
No drinking water is believed to have been affected. Health officials continue to caution people to avoid direct contact with water downstream. Fishing on the river already was closed before the spill occurred late Sunday or early Monday.
When the owners of the farm discovered the spill Monday, they built a temporary berm to try to block any more waste from flowing directly into the stream, said Ralph Svrjcek, a water quality specialist for the state Department of Ecology. They also uncovered one of the metal pipelines that was emptying wastewater into the slough and smashed it to cut off the flow, he said.
The owners also pumped some of the wastewater out into the farm’s irrigation system. They have been cooperative in the investigation, officials said.
“The farm has additional manure storage capacity, which we will rely on during this immediate response period,” said Jason Bartelheimer, one of the owners, in a written statement on Tuesday. “Our goal is to prevent further manure runoff into French Slough.”
No one at the farm returned a phone call Wednesday.
Some water still was running out of a pipeline into the slough on Wednesday, but it was much clearer than it was on Monday afternoon, Svrjcek said.
“The other day it was coming out black and there was a lot more of it,” he said.
Preliminary testing after the spill found low levels of dissolved oxygen in the river and along the slough nearer the spill, said Nora Mena, director of the dairy nutrient management program for the state Department of Agriculture.
Low oxygen levels are not good for fish. French Slough has a coho salmon run, but these fish are not believed to be affected by the spill, Svrjcek said. Some fish were seen swimming on the surface of the slough on Monday, apparently to get more oxygen, but they were sucker fish, not salmon, he said.
The agriculture department has tested the creek and river for fecal coliform bacteria, which can cause severe illness in humans if ingested. Those tests have not been analyzed, Mena said.
Anyone who comes into contact with the contaminated water is advised to wash thoroughly afterward, said Randy Darst, environmental health director for the Snohomish Health District.
Tests for dissolved oxygen on Wednesday showed an improvement, Mena said.
It’s possible the farm could be fined for the spill but that won’t be known for some time, she said. It will probably be a month before all the facts are known, she said. The apparent absence of dead fish works in the farm’s favor, Mena said.
The lagoon was built to federal standards in 1997 and issued a permit by the state. The dike is 15 feet tall and the lagoon bottom is 5 feet below ground level. The basin is 580 feet in diameter. The breach was more than 30 feet wide. It drained the lagoon of all its contents above ground level.
The dairy’s latest inspection conducted by the agriculture department a year ago revealed only minor issues that were subsequently addressed, according to the department.
The federal Natural Resources Conservation Service and the state Department of Ecology are investigating the cause of the dike failure.
Bill Sheets: 425-339-3439; sheets@heraldnet.com.
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