Bensenville probing fish kill along creek

Bensenville officials are investigating a mass fish kill in a creek running along Red Oak Avenue.

The creek runs through White Pines Golf Course, through land on the 200 block of east Red Oak Avenue, under the street and into a retention pond in Redmond Park.

Public works officials examined the site Tuesday morning but could not be reached for comment that afternoon. Bensenville police said they did not have details on the incident.

The creek runs through the property of Susan Marshall, who spent Tuesday trying to rescue fish and move them to a pond in Mount Emblem Cemetery in Elmhurst.

Marshall said she noticed at least one dead fish per foot for as far as she could see while standing at her home on Red Oak Avenue.

"Coincidentally there is this horrific brown scum on the top of the water that smells oily," she said. "I mean, occasionally the creek gets dirty but I've never seen any dead fish."

She said the retention pond where the creek leads also has a turquoise film surrounding the water's edge.

"It makes you wonder what people are putting in this water," she said.

But it's possible weather factors also affected the fish. Bloomingdale and Chicago both dealt with large numbers of dead fish earlier this month as a result of heat and rain.

Bloomingdale Park District officials said they believe their July 9 incident in a pond near Westlake Park was caused by temperature changes when cold rain hit warm water and reduced oxygen levels.

Bloomingdale police said an investigation showed no signs of any criminal activity, while the water department tested the water for chemicals and found nothing amiss.

The incident occurred at roughly the same time as the discovery of hundreds of dead fish in Chicago's Garfield Park lagoon. Officials from the Chicago Park District and Illinois Department of Nature Resources suggested the Garfield Park incident might have been caused by similar temperature changes.