EXCERPT:
Charleston-N Charleston, SC Metro Area
- Phone:
- (843) 766-8109
- Website:
- Information not found
Ads by Google
- Employment Job Posting Find The Right Job Today. 1000s Of Job Postings In Your Area -Free!
- The ads are not affiliated with B & C Utilities
About B & C Utilities
Is this your company? Claim This Profilehttp://www.thesunnews.com/2011/01/08/1909111/city-moves-to-clean-beach-of-dead.html
Saturday, Jan. 08, 2011
City moves to clean beach of dead fish
By Schuyler Kropf - The (Charleston) Post and Courier E-Mail Print 1 Comment
Reprint or license
FOLLY BEACH -- The fish kill was Gene Nelson's opportunity to scoop up free fertilizer.
Nelson arrived early Friday to collect buckets of dead menhaden, filling three or four loads of the finger-length fish. He plans to bury them as tree feed ahead of planting season.
"You've got to put them in the ground right away," said Nelson, of North Charleston, who wore rubber gloves as he bent over on his hands and knees pulling loads in.
Trey Smalls, with B & C Utilities, cleans up the fish kill on Folly Beach. Similar stories:
Cold blamed for menhaden kill
Hundreds of thousands of dead menhaden littered the sand here Thursday, stretching in either direction from the Folly Pier in a line along the tide wash as far as could be seen. Blackbirds and grackle were picking at them.
Thousands of fish wash up on South Carolina coast
Thousands of menhaden have washed up on Folly Beach on the South Carolina coast, and an official says they were apparently killed by cold weather.
Look for | Spotted seatrout, red drum, flounder, sheepshead, black drum, spots.
Comments | With water temperatures dropping into the lower 60s and upper 50s and the calendar reading mid-November, spotted seatrout have made a good showing in many areas this week including the Georgetown/Winyah Bay vicinity, Murrells Inlet and the Little River area. Look for trout on dropoffs around Spartina grass banks, creek mouths and at area jetties. Capt. Mike McDonald of Gul-R-Boy Guide Service produced 30 trout on a Wednesday morning trip south of Georgetown using grubs on 1/4-oz. jig heads while Capt. Patrick "Capt. Smiley" Kelley of Capt. Smiley Charters in Little River has landed trout this week using live shrimp on a popping cork. Tom Craddock of Inlet Convenience in Murrells Inlet reports catches of trout have picked up live shrimp, if available, and Mirrorlures in the inlet. McDonald had a very good quick outing early this week to the jetties at Winyah Bay, making short work of trout, red drum
Look for | Red drum, spotted seatrout, flounder, sheepshead, black drum.
Comments | Despite water temperatures in the mid to upper 40s, action has been good for red drum schooled up in shallow water in local estuaries. Capt. Mike McDonald of Gul-R-Boy Guide Service caught 23 red drum on a Wednesday trip in Winyah Bay using Haw River and Cal Bait grubs, including Electric Chicken and green-metal flake, on 1/4-oz jig heads. McDonald notes water temps of 47 in the bay and 49 in shallow water at low tide. Capt. Mark Dickson of Shallow-Minded Inshore Charters has had successful trips for red drum in shallow water in the Little River area using Gulp shrimp on a ¼-ounce Bluewater Candy Aftershock jig head. Dickson noted 47-48 degree water. Dickson also ventured to North Inlet for more solid red drum fishing early this week in 45-degree water. Tom Craddock of Inlet Convenience reports anglers have caught a few flounder in Murrells Inlet and sheepshead and black drum at the jetties.
Nelson wasn't the only scooper on site. Down the beach, work crews hired by the city of Folly Beach used shovels and heavy duty earth-moving equipment to clean a mile-and-a-half stretch of thousands of stinking menhaden carcasses that had washed ashore earlier this week.
Officials expect the work to be all done by today, at a cost of between $5,000 and $6,000.
While state wildlife officials said the die-off appears to be a product of the recent cold and lower sea temperatures, some locals said there is reason to be concerned about stress on the ocean's environment.
"These are bait fish that larger fish feed on," local resident Tom Jerussi said. "So it might impact the fishing this year."
He also wondered if it truly was the just the weather that's responsible.
"It's been this cold before."
Temperatures offshore and in Charleston Harbor this week were in the upper 40s.
Other locals said they saw the disaster coming a few days ago. Kathy Ashworth, who walks the beach daily, said she saw giant schools of menhaden just off shore Wednesday, moving in groups so thick that numerous hungry dolphin were attracted to the buffet.
"I've never seen that many in one place before," she said.
Menhaden are smaller bait fish that travel in large schools, and tend to move farther south as waters cool. They swim shallower than other fish, and can be more susceptible to cold patches of water. The number found dead isn't so startling, some say, because the schools tend to be massive.
Friday morning's high tide wasn't high enough to take many of the dead back out to sea. One of the thicker accumulations was above the surf line just north of the Folly Beach pier, where a week ago many hundreds of people gathered for the annual New Year's polar bear swim. Meanwhile, birds of all kinds gorged themselves up and down the beach.
State wildlife biologists who responded to the kill reported earlier the menhaden had been otherwise healthy, and officials at other nearby beaches had no reports of fish kills there.
Folly Beach Director of Public Works Stephen Robinson said the plan is for a contract crew to remove the fish using heavy equipment and transporting the recovery to the Bee's Ferry landfill for disposal.
Mark Williams, an incident responder with the state Department of Health and Environmental Control, said there is nothing environmentally irregular to moving dead fish to a landfill, though Folly's course is different than most in that it is eager to clear the beach sooner than a more isolated place would, he said.
"Most fish kills are not done that way," Williams said, adding most are left up to "Mother Nature" to resolve. But in this case, Folly wanted the beach cleared so people can keep using the beach. Otherwise, "you'd have the odor and some mess to deal with," Williams said.
Jerussi said he had no problem with the speed of Friday's cleanup. "They will stink like crazy in another day," he said.
Read more: http://www.thesunnews.com/2011/01/08/1909111/city-moves-to-clean-beach-of-dead.html#ixzz1AVc6HplZ
I don't know if this B&C is same as company in SC but I found it interesting that this company is associated w/Accenture.......... isn't that new name for old company Arthur Andersen/ hmmmmmm and weren't they supporting Tiger Woods? hmmmmmmmmmm
http://bctf.ca/publications/NewsmagArticle.aspx?id=8848
http://www.straight.com/article-362872/vancouver/bc-hydro-proposes-increasing-monthly-home-electricity-bills-7-year
No comments:
Post a Comment