Oil dumping caused fish kill in Bensenville

Bensenville officials say they suspect motor oil dumped by a resident of an apartment complex triggered a small fish kill earlier this week in a creek running along Red Oak Avenue.

A resident had reported dying fish and an oily substance in the water. Public works officials on Thursday said water quality tests came back positive for oil pollution.

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.

Officials said they suspect the dumping originated from a small apartment complex south of White Pines. They are unsure how much oil was released.

"We suspect someone changed their car oil, dumped it into a stormwater basin on private property, then unfortunately it drained into a tributary that feeds into the creek," public works director Paul Quinn said.

Quinn said only about 10 fished died, although resident Susan Marshall said she tried to save more than a dozen on Monday and Tuesday by moving them to a pond in Mount Emblem Cemetery in Elmhurst. The creek runs behind Marshall's home on Red Oak Avenue.

To alleviate the problem, Quinn said workers on Thursday night will flush a drain that dumps into the tributaries with several hundred thousand gallons of fresh water.

Bensenville officials also contacted a field agent with the Environmental Protection Agency as standard protocol, but Quinn said the agent felt Bensenville's solution to clean the oil was adequate and took no further action.

Quinn also acknowledged the growth of blue algae in the creek and Redmond Pond, which can deplete oxygen levels in the water and might have contributed to the death of the fish.

"It's kind of a double whammy," Quinn said.

Low oxygen levels also were responsible this month for killing fish in a Bloomingdale pond and Chicago's Garfield Park lagoon.

No one will be ticketed or fined in the dumping, Quinn said, since it's impossible to determine which residents in the apartment complex are responsible. But village officials are working with the landlord to educate residents.

"I think this is a case of where we have someone who just wasn't thinking," Quinn said.

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<li><a href="/story/?id=395310">Bensenville probing fish kill along creek <span class="date">[07/21/10]</span></a></li>

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