Fish kills could have angling industry reeling
By Dominic Desmond, news editor
Posted on August 28, 2006

Jeff Kelble used to be a fishing guide. After working seven full seasons, pulling in over 15 hours a day for 10 months of the year, he decided it was time to hang up his waders. Until the spring of 2004, two-thirds of the time he spent with clients fishing was on the Shenandoah River.

That spring, Kelble became involved in the initial reporting of fish kills appearing on the North Fork of the Shenandoah River.
Kelble said in some areas he wasn’t finding fish, or the fish he was finding were immature or had lesions on them. Once this began happening, he began going from river to river.

A report presented to the Shenandoah River Fish Kill Task Force this summer, estimates freshwater fishing contributed between $15.5 and $20.5 million in retail spending to the Shenandoah Valley in 2001.  

ISAT professor and member of the Center for Energy and Environmental Sustainability Maria Papadakis cautions the study she authored this summer investigating the economic impacts of fish kills is only preliminary. She also said some have overemphasized elements of the study.

The study also estimates that in 2005 an estimated 2,100 fishers were “lost” due to the fish kill. Because of these “lost” anglers, retail spending dropped by $686,000 and state revenues, collected mainly from fishing permits and taxes, shrank by $57,000. Kelble said he feels there is credence in Center’s study and understands it’s only a preliminary study, but he thinks real estate values should be taken into account in a future study of this kind. He said he has known a number of people with a significant amount of capital that did not want to move to the river because the recent years’ fish kills.

Don Kain of the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and co-chairman of the Task Force agreed that these kills are impacting many people personally and professionally. He and those involved in the task force are, however, still puzzled by the cause of the kills that have occurred over recent years. Researchers have singled out bacterial infections as the cause of death for large numbers of fish, but they are still at a loss as to what stressor or stressors are causing the infections.

“We don’t want to be pointing fingers where they shouldn’t be,” Kain cautioned. “It’s like recreating a crime scene.”

In Boyce, Kelble is still running his bed and breakfast with his wife. He had hoped his guide service, Playing Hookie, would have worked in tandem with this other venture. But now, Kelble also has a new job as the first Shenandoah Riverkeeper, which he says he “is making up as he goes along.” Being just a citizen, he can afford to be a little less diplomatic.

“I’ve got 10 fingers and 10 toes,” Kelble said. “I’m pointing them at everyone.”

Kelble lives only a few minutes from the river and said he is fine going into the river, but he’s a little anxious about his daughter going in.

“I went down to the river with my daughter one day,” he recalled, “and didn’t let her go in.”