By Justin Schneider, Herald Bulletin Online Reporter/Manager
The Herald Bulletin
ANDERSON, Ind. — Scour the banks of the White River.
Amid the muddy banks, rich clumps of algae and swirling smallmouth bass, faint traces of the environmental catastrophe known as the White River fish kill can still be found.
“It left a trademark ring around every rock and every piece of concrete,” said John Bundy, founder of White River Rescue 2000. “It left a snow-white ring.”
In 1999, a chemical discharge originating in Anderson decimated aquatic life for 57 miles along the waterway. It killed 4.6 million fish, leaving the public concerned about natural resources and suspicious of industry.
But for all its destructive power, the incident also inspired unity. It rallied government agencies, conservationists and the public behind a common cause. That sense of cooperation led to a landmark settlement and restoration effort and, 10 years later, the White River has exceeded expectations for its recovery.
“In the last decade, it’s created an incredible amount of public awareness,” said Crist Blassaras, former president of the White River Watchers. “More people are utilizing the White River today as a recreational resource. It’s in better shape today than it was 10 years ago.”
A complete kill
The first signs of trouble appeared on Dec. 13, 1999, when the Anderson Wastewater Treatment Plant began churning out a wall of foam. Three days later, a conservation officer in Hamilton County observed about 20 dead fish in the White River.
John Bundy also witnessed strange activity near his Perkinsville home.
“The fish were all up on top of the surface, popping the surface, forcing their way up Pipe Creek,” Bundy said. “We had a lot of log jams in there, and they couldn’t get up there very well to get into the fresh water. They were already dead. They had already been exposed to the neurotoxin.”
By Dec. 20, environmental regulators were inspecting the city sewage plant and discovered that Anderson had failed to report the foam. An estimated 100,000 dead fish were reported by Dec. 27. The following day, Indiana Department of Environmental Management Commissioner Lori Kaplan said that her agency had traced the contamination back to Guide Corp.’s automotive lighting factory in Anderson.
“What we learned in those early, early investigations was that it appeared to have been a complete kill,” said Bill James, chief of fisheries for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. “All fish in the river, from Anderson to a point about 30 miles downstream. Another 20 miles were not a complete kill, but a partial kill.”
In all, 4.6 million fish weighing a total of 187 tons had been destroyed.
Delay and opportunity
Kevin Hardie, executive director of Friends of the White River, said it took widespread media coverage for the disaster to gain traction politically.
“It was a perfect storm, the combination of events,” Hardie said. “A lot of agencies were limited in terms of manpower with the traditional holiday slow period. We had low water levels, and extremely low temperatures moved in.”
The response reached a critical mass on Jan. 11, 2000, when Gov. Frank O’Bannon asked the FBI, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice to investigate violations of the Clean Water Act. On Jan. 12, state inspectors marched into Guide with a court-issued warrant to gather evidence.
A protracted legal battle was about to begin, and Indiana hired a former Justice Department attorney, Linda L. Pence, to investigate at a cost of $225.25 an hour. John Bundy knew the river couldn’t afford another delay.
“We knew there would be a settlement, but it could take more than a year,” Bundy said. “We had to raise the money privately.”
Bundy set up White River Rescue 2000, with his wife, Valerie; Jim and Lori Schwartz, owners of a bait and tackle shop in Noblesville, and Don Watson. The group was in place to receive a $50,000 donation from Guide and matching funds from Wal-Mart. Bundy, also the owner of decoy company Bundy Ducks, rolled out a fundraising model at $180 apiece, bringing the total money raised to $167,000.
“Nature abhors a vacuum,” Bundy said. “Bill (James) and I said, ‘We can make it happen if we restock.’”
While IDEM, Justice and the EPA were investigating the river as a crime scene, others continued to focus on the environmental damage. The research led to one especially positive discovery: the contaminant had essentially washed away.
“That became a very important point in the restoration plan for the river: it wasn’t bioaccumulating,” James said. “It flashed through and then we had just lost the aquatic community out there. Mother nature was starting to rebuild.”
Life returns
By Jan. 2, James and his team confirmed that insects and macro invertebrates — organisms important to the food chain, such as crayfish, snails, mussels, flatworms and dragonflies — had burrowed into the soil for the winter, protecting them from the discharge. On April 28, the DNR began stocking the river with fish.
Behind closed doors, federal investigators were meeting with Steve Murray, executive vice president of human resources with Guide, IDEM spokesman Steve Sellers and Timothy B. Morrison, United States attorney for the South District of Indiana.
On June 18, 2001, Gov. O’Bannon staged a press conference at White River State Park in Indianapolis to announce that Guide had agreed to plead guilty to seven counts of criminal neglect and would pay $13.97 million to settle state and federal lawsuits.
“We caught the big fish,” O’Bannon told the crowd.
Terms of the settlement set aside $6 million for river restoration in the 57-mile kill zone. Three trustees were put in place to oversee the application of settlement funds: Scott Pruitt from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, John M. Davis of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and Elizabeth Admire from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
“We got the ideas to come to us,” Pruitt said. “During our monthly meetings we reviewed hundreds of applications and ideas and funded many of them.”
The state acquired 283 acres through “fee simple” land acquisitions and another 265 acres through conservation easements, which protect land from development. Another 650 acres underwent habitat restoration through the removal of invasive species and replanting of native species. River Bend Park, at the corner of Second and Sycamore streets just west of Madison Avenue in Anderson, is one example where land that was previously part of an agricultural field was planted with trees and prairie grass.
About $750,000 was spent to improve public access points and create new ones. New boat launches were created in Hamilton County and Perkinsville, a canoe launch was added to River Bend Park in Anderson and the Broad Ripple Boat Ramp was improved.
Carl Wodrich, natural resource damages program director for the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, facilitated meetings for public input on river restoration.
“We received $6.25 million for restoration, and we’ve spent pretty much all of it,” Wodrich said. “(The river) is probably in a lot better shape now than it was pre-fish kill.”
Legacy of a tragedy
Ten years on, those improvement projects are the legacy of the fish kill.
More than 1 million fish from 12 species have been stocked. Fisheries biologists seized the opportunity to re-introduce lost species, including the red horse, freshwater drum, buffalo fish and the sauger, a small cousin of the walleye. James says the fish population has made a full recovery.
“We asked in 2000 whether we could get back to where it was in a decade, and it’s because that’s how long it takes to grow a big fish,” James said. “The guide services can catch 50 to 100 smallmouth bass in a day. We’re finding 18-, 19-, 20-inch and even bigger smallmouth bass. The bass fishery is every bit as good or better.”
Scott Pruitt said the fish kill is responsible for cleaner river banks. White River Rescue 2000 helped clean up the Moss Island Dump, removing bridge trestles and conducting ravine cleanups along 17 linear miles of the river bank.
“This disaster kind of turned people’s interest to it,” Pruitt said. “There was a huge outpouring to get the garbage out and clean the shorelines and take better care of it.”
Maybe those snow-white rings are more blessing than curse. A reminder, not just of a disaster, but of a community rallying to recovery.
“Yes, the fish kill happened,” Bundy said. “The real emphasis of the story is the hundreds and hundreds of people — your status didn’t matter — the richest and the poorest pitched in and actually came down and physically helped. It’s a point in time which really doesn’t need to be forgotten. We can’t do that to our environment.”
