Don’t eat Mill Creek Park fish, health chief advises.

July 7, 2015 at 12:00a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

City Health Commissioner Erin Bishop urged anglers not to eat any live fish they catch in Mill Creek MetroParks’ lakes Newport, Cohasset or Glacier or in Mill Creek downstream from any of these lakes due to a massive fish kill in Lake Newport.

“I would say wait until it’s cleaned up,” before eating the fish, Bishop said Monday, referring to the mess caused by the dead fish.

“It’s reasonable to wait until the water quality returns” from a common-sense perspective, agreed Patricia Sweeney, Mahoning County Health commissioner.

A county health sanitarian has visited Lake Newport, which straddles the Youngstown-Boardman border, to examine the matter from a public-health perspective.

The fish kill was caused by a combined storm and sanitary- sewer overflow from the city’s system during recent heavy rains, which depleted the dissolved oxygen in the water, which is essential to fish survival.

“It’s a perfect storm between all the rain and the [sewer overflow],” Sweeney said.

The stench of decaying dead fish littering the shores of Lake Newport is noticeable along the shoreline in the hot weather, and dead fish have flowed downstream into the Mill Creek Gorge and Cohasset and Glacier lakes.

Mill Creek MetroParks staff began the cleanup last week, and will continue today.

“This is all the result of the fish kill we had last week. As the water continues to get low, you’ll see more of them [dead fish],” said Samantha Villella, community engagement director for the park system.

The park administration does not plan to seek restitution from the city, park officials said Monday. The cost to the park system likely will be minimal, they said, since park staff members are handling it.

Cleanup involves placing the fish into garbage bags.

The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources are investigating the fish kill.

“The leading cause of the fish kill is the city of Youngstown’s combined sewer system (both sanitary and storm water) in combination with high rain events,” said Linda Fee Oros, OEPA public information officer.

Two of the city’s 101 combined storm and sanitary sewer overflows are near Lake Newport, she said.

Other pollutants, including pesticides and normal run-off, may have played roles in the fish kill in addition to the sewage overflow, said Charles Shasho, deputy director of the city’s public works department.

The city is permitted to have its sewer overflow into Mill Creek’s lakes, he said.

“It was designed to do that when the city first had a sewage system,” Shasho said. “The overflows are because of the intense storms. It’s happened since the sewers were put it decades ago. It’s not unusual. It’s unfortunate a lot of fish died.

“There are overflows and they occur, particularly with heavy rains.”

As for how much sewage went into the lakes, Shasho said he doesn’t know.

“We don’t measure it,” he said. “The sewers back up and spill into the lakes,” he said.

The city only is required to report dry weather overflows, not during storm events, he noted.

The Vindicator emailed a public-records request Monday to Shasho seeking to obtain the overflow reports for the past four weeks.

In an agreement signed late last year with the state and federal EPA, Youngstown agreed to spend $146 million over 20 years to improve its wastewater system.

Among key provisions of that deal is spending $48 million for an interceptor to keep wastewater from flowing into Mill Creek’s lakes.

“From our perspective, this is an open investigation. As part of an investigation, dead and affected wildlife are documented,” said Susie Vance, an ODNR Division of Wildlife spokeswoman.

She said she could not provide a count of the number of dead fish.

She urged anyone who notices a large wildlife kill to call 800-945-3543 or the Ohio EPA emergency response number 800-282-9378.

Despite the mess, the boat rental at Lake Newport was open for business as usual Saturday and Sunday. Park officials say that, at this time, there is no reason to believe the water is unsafe for recreational purposes.

Sweeney said neither ODNR nor OEPA are discouraging boating on Lake Newport.

Bill Coleman, office manager in the Mahoning County Sanitary Engineering Department, said there have been no overflows of untreated sewage from the county’s Boardman Wastewater Treatment Plant on East Parkside Drive or from the county’s sewer system.

The county’s sewer system is sanitary only, not combined with any storm- sewer system and has no overflows, he said.

“Our system is a closed system for sanitary sewer only,” he added.

Reporter Jordyn Grzelewski contributed to this report.