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Fish die as vegetable oil runoff from fire enters creek

The Columbian
Published: August 19, 2015, 5:00pm

WINLOCK — An oil spill of a different sort appears to have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of small fish in a Lewis County creek, said a spokesman for the state Ecology Department on Tuesday.

Officials believe vegetable oil and shortening that had recently been delivered to a food warehouse in Winlock washed into Olequa Creek, a tributary of the Cowlitz River, as firefighters doused a fire that destroyed the warehouse early Tuesday. The spill killed fish as far as 7 miles downstream, with what appeared to be a “100 percent kill for 5 miles,” Ecology spokesman Chase Gallagher said.

Agency workers were not immediately able to estimate how many fish had been killed “because the number is so high,” Gallagher said, but it was more likely in the thousands than the hundreds. It also remained unclear how much oil entered the water.

Many of the fish killed near the site of the fire were fingerling salmon, but at least a few larger salmon also died. The Native American name of Olequa Creek means “where salmon come to spawn.”

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