News from DEP at Raystown Lake

[fishballer06]

Looks like there was a spill that leaked into Raystown lake 2.5 years ago that wasn't reported immediately.

https://wjactv.com/news/local/dep-issues-195m-fine-to-sunoco-pipeline-over-violations-at-raystown-lake

[apiazza]

Interesting. I wonder if that have been any noticeable changes in results from things like local fishing tournaments? I wonder what "our agreement with DEP includes aquatic habitat improvement for this valuable resource" means in reality.

[zippyduck]

So far no lack of good fishing in tourneys. The last few big tourneys still reported the same avg. catches.

This kind of spill is one that will take years to find out what kind of change it has made.

[fishballer06]

The article says that only 8 acres of water were effected. My guess is it probably killed all the aquatic vegetation in that area. Probably hurt the oxygen levels in that area as well, but hopefully it was something where the fish were able to leave that area rather than just die.

[zippyduck]

I would like to know what 8 acres and it will spread with as much current is in that lake,

[apiazza]

I mentioned it to a guy I work with that fishes tourneys up there and he had not heard about it. He agreed though, seems like no lack of quality of fishing.

[fishballer06]

I mentioned it to a guy I work with that fishes tourneys up there and he had not heard about it. He agreed though, seems like no lack of quality of fishing.

From what I understood from a few articles, this "spill" happened in 2017, and the DEP just found out about it recently (last week?). So that could explain why we never heard about it.

[apiazza]

From what I understood from a few articles, this "spill" happened in 2017, and the DEP just found out about it recently (last week?). So that could explain why we never heard about it.

I'm guessing they have known for a while. When lawyers are involved nothing happens in a week, nevermind a million dollar settlement lol

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[apiazza]

Found a bit more information about the timeline in this article:

https://stateimpact.npr.org/pennsylvania/2020/01/17/sunoco-fined-2-million-for-mariner-east-spills-in-raystown-lake/

Sounds like spilled between April and December 2017. The initially only reported 25 gallon spill in December 2017 (laughable). Reading between the lines a bit it looks like the rest was reported, or some subset of it, in early 2018 because they had the area a no wake zone in summer 2018.

If the stuff is heavy enough to settle quickly, I wonder if they can go in suck it up off the lake floor?