A fish story--search leads to questions about public accountability of Park Service

by DENNIS GEISINGER

It was hard not to feel expectancy and at the same time dread as I clomped down the wooden stairs of the Southside Pride office at the corner of 32nd and Chicago with the newspaper's digital camera clutched in the furry white bag whose true purpose in life had been to cover a golf club. My job assignment that afternoon was decidedly above and beyond. Get a picture of the dead fish. A good one if possible. Clearly focused and well composed.

On Powderhorn shore. Hundreds of stunned little sunnies and bullheads, and big, 12-to-18-inch, desiccating catfish. My publisher was sure of the e-mail, which had come forward.

Death had done it again and it wasn't--again--good. You can see how as a journalist I felt obliged to retrieve any evidence I could. Fifteen or twenty channel cats floating to the top of Powderhorn Pond, according to sources within the City Park apparatus, floating up much as they had been poured in when the lake was restocked a year or so ago--fully grown and furnished with their own mission-- to eat those little fish who were stirring up the bottom and turning the water all muddy.

But none had survived and my publisher wanted a portrait of their final appearance, a last salute to the gilled spirits, if you will. Collateral damage of a Park Board campaign to rid Powderhorn Pond of Brazilian elodea, an invasive aquatic plant new to Minnesota waters discovered last September, according to the DNR, during a scheduled survey of the lake's vegetation.

"It is suspected someone may have dumped the contents of an aquarium, including the Brazilian elodea, into the lake," says a DNR press release. Elodea is widely sold in commercial aquariums and the presence of goldfish in Powderhorn Pond suggests that past aquarium releases have occurred there.

"It is important to limit the spread of the plant in Minnesota to prevent the development of potential problems,"  says DNR policy, problems similar to those caused by Eurasian water milfoil, like the formation of mats at the water's surface that interfere with boating and swimming, as well as the displacement of native plants. In order to eradicate the plant from Powderhorn Lake, herbicide was introduced into the lake last fall.

But the herbicide was only a part of the Park's arsenal. As an added measure against the elodea, winter aerators that had been installed in 1995 to increase oxygen content in the deeper water to prevent fish kill were not turned on.

"The fish likely died from low dissolved oxygen levels in the lake both because of the decision to keep aerators off and because of the thick ice and snow cover,"  the Park Board's Water Resources Coordinator Sara Aplikowski told Southside Pride.

"The lake will be restocked--most likely at the end of May--with about 800 bluegill and 50 to 60 catfish and large mouth bass,"  Aplikowski said.

But there was still the matter of the dead fish. And the picture.

 "Hold their coats as they hit shore," Ed said when I got the camera from the drawer. "Get a shot of one or two upside down with stink rays. Belly-up, as they say." 

So you perceive. I looked down from the street to the water's dark edge with the singular view of a man on a ledge. Dead fish. And getting close enough in the afternoon light so they'd come out distinctly in black and in white. That was my job, not poetry, mister.

But there it was again, that sensation of hope-filled heartbreak as I trundled down the hill to hover over the shoreline. The air was wafting fresh. The reeds were littered with a few recyclables and empty snack sacks that a bent figure in tall waders was placidly picking and sticking into a limp, black garbage bag. But no dead fish. Not a one. I narrowed my eyes to scan the pond's circumference, then returned my gaze to the trash collector.

"Don' t suppose you seen any dead fish?"  I said with the unconcern of one instinctively aware that circumstances did not require good English. The man below looked up from his rubber boot tops and grinned at me through a whitened beard.

"Well, yeah," he said with absolutely no hesitation. "I collected some of them a few days ago and put them in my garden," he said, smiling still. "Great nitrogen supply for the soil."  I could feel my heart crashing through the bottom floor as I recalled the voice coming from the other end of phone at the crime scene.

"They all came up at once," said Powderhorn Park Director Peter Jaeger. "Maintenance took care of them," Jaeger had informed me.

"It was the Brazilian elodea," continued the man with the garbage bag. "The park people used the zero oxygen level this winter to finish off this plant. It makes some sense, since plants use a fair amount of oxygen at night, and may also need a lot in the winter."  He introduced himself, by way of explanation, as a biology teacher from Clara Barton Open who happened to live only a few streets over from the park, John Klein. Klein told me he had a dedicated interest in Powderhorn and its pond.

"It would be great if there was a regular way for the park staff to communicate with the public," Klein said. "Maybe misunderstandings and concerns wouldn't happen as often and we could be more supportive of their work. Maybe if we had an organization that could act as a go-between," he said.

One neighborhood group with a rather dubious acronym as it turns out, as far as the dead fish are concerned, says it has made a considered effort to increase local knowledge and participation in the custodial care of Powderhorn Lake.

"SOL! is an ad hoc group that met regularly in the early years and carried on many activities to build awareness of the state of the lake and rally greater neighborhood support," said Save Our Lakes! Coordinator Michael Kehoe. "The recent fish kill at our lake seems to have caused some degree of distress--and rightly so," Kehoe said. Yet others in the neighborhood seem to have given it over to the greater good.

"It is hard that we had to sacrifice, but ultimately it seems to me that that is a better outcome than having the weed spread to other area lakes, necessitating a larger and more dramatic solution,"  said Amy Wurdock, a director on the Powderhorn Park Neighborhood Association Board.

"If the park can promote what their plan is for the lake maybe people would be less likely to add the
exotic stuff because they know the lake is being carefully managed," said my friend, Klein, with a scholarly tone and a look that said that he knew. Klein knew all right, he knew even before it had dawned on me, that it was he and only he who could provide the story with what was, ultimately, absolutely, essential.

The picture.

The sun had slipped the surly bonds of earth by the time I climbed the steps to the little newspaper office with its dusty computers and hard-copy printers, hardly illuminated at all from the window's cloying light. Still, it was with the sumptuous joy of a job well done that I uploaded the contents of my camera and waited breathlessly for the results of my print command to come rolling out of the smudged platens of the whining machine.

" Ed! Ed!"  I shrieked like a Shawnee warrior, stumbling headlong into my publisher's office in the deep bowels of the building, holding out triumphantly before me the sweet fruit of my labors. "I've got it, Ed! Ed! The one that didn't get away!"  And I showed him the shadowed news shot of Klein, the biologist in his black-soiled garden, holding a rotted and muddy approximation of a great fresh-water beast on the tines of an antique potato fork.

"Sorry,"  said Ed, turning a sneer on the fish that was dead. "Can't use it."