[bentalphanerd]

Hi..o.k I'll fess up immediately - my chemistry is lousy at best, but I really need some info.

Recently the wildlife in our local parks' creek was wiped out by some kind of chemical spill or dumping. As the chemical came through it had a large head of suds like a bubble bath up to 2 M high in places. After it was gone the fish were all dead & their skin peeling off. It happened 3 times last week. the local council & EPA have been involved, but don't appear to be trying too hard. There is a lot of industrial estates upstream, any one of them may have done this.

O.K so I have a water sample from when the first spill came through. After some thought Im thinking it may be the dumping of used industrial strength degreaser and understand that most companies around here use a citric acid based cleanser for this.

My question (at last) Is there a way I can test my sample for citric acid. I'm at home with no access to a lab.

The entire neighbourhood will appreciate any help you can give as our children & pets were regulars at the park, along with the fish, eels, turtles, ducks, migratory water birds etc., etc. that are all gone.

Thanks,
~bent

[Borek]

I am afraid none of the tests you can try at home will work. Besides, even if you will find citric acid, it will still not give you a lot of information - you will be still far from being able to identify dumped substance and dumping company.

I suppose you should look for a lab that will be able to do the serious analysis of the water. Perhaps ask for such a lab in a place where they sell pond fish - from what I know it is not that rare that pond owners have problems with the water quality, so this community knows where to look for help. Unfortunately, it may be costly.

Have you thought about walking up the creek to see whether you are able to find out traces of the spill? There will be no traces above the source. Depending on the weather in your area you may be able to see dead fish or suds on the branches, stones and so on. It doesn't have to work, but it might be worth a try.

[Himik_1982]

I'm afraid citric acid is not a poison you looking for. It isn't a degreaser, but a scale remover. I think detergents could be a cause of fish killing.

[bentalphanerd]

Thanks for the replies.

Yes we followed it up the creek but its quite fast moving and we soon ran out of trail. Unfortunately there is several suburbs of Industrial estate out there and it will be hard to narrow down.

The Citric Acid degreaser is very concentrated and will burn the skin in the form it is shipped in. I'm thinking if it were used in that form (to clean grease from machinery for maintenance) then dumped in bulk it may casue the results we have seen.

Thanks for the tip on the aquarium store. I'll make a few calls today.

Heres what it looks like: http://www.alphanerdz.com/creek.zip  (2.2 Mb zip)


Thanks again.

[Borek]

Many detergents will create such foam.