March. 1963 



Larimore & Smith : Fishes of Champaign County 



353 



ing recent decades. According to Thomp- 

 son & Hunt, wastes from a canning fac- 

 tory at Gibson City caused the fish kill 

 that they described. Such kills have ex- 

 tended downstream as far as Mahomet. 

 The threat of severe pollution was re- 

 duced, but not eliminated, by the recent 

 installation of a disposal plant at Gibson 

 City for the treatment of domestic wastes. 

 Upper Kaskaskia. — Alteration of the 

 natural water temperatures of a stream 

 may be considered a type of pollution. 

 West of Champaign, one-half mile south 

 of Illinois State Route 10, the U. S. In- 

 dustrial Chemical Company from time to 

 time pumps large volumes of water from 

 three wells into the Kaskaskia for use at 

 plants near Ficklin, 20 miles downstream. 

 The temperature of the well water is near 

 55 degrees F. On July 14, 1959, at 3:00 

 P.M., the stream temperature above these 

 wells was 91 degrees, at the wells 60 de- 

 grees, and the water temperature re- 

 mained subnormal for 5 miles below the 

 wells. On February 2, 1961, at 10:00 

 A.M., when all other streams in the 

 county were covered by heavy ice, the 

 Kaskaskia was open for 6 miles below the 

 wells. The water temperature was 51 de- 

 grees at the wells, 36.5 degrees 3.5 miles 

 downstream, and 32.5 degrees 6 miles be- 

 low the wells. Large aggregations of fish 

 and heavy algal blooms occurred in the 

 2 miles of stream below the wells. Be- 

 sides altering temperature and producing 

 a more constant flow seasonally, the wells 

 also reduced the sulfate, chloride, and 

 hardness (as CaCOs) of the water below 

 that of any other natural waters exam- 

 ined in the county, table 3. Although spe- 

 cies composition and the distribution of 

 fish aggregations could conceivably be al- 

 tered by the well water, no such evidence 

 was available from our collections. 



Chemistry of Polluted Waters 



Pollution may drastically change the 

 amount of dissolved chemicals in w^ater. 

 Samples taken on the East Branch of the 

 Salt Fork north of St. Joseph, on the 

 West Branch east of Urbana, and on the 

 Salt Fork northwest of Homer, fig. 14, all 

 show the influence of domestic and com- 

 mercial wastes, table 3, and are character- 

 ized by high concentrations of ammonium, 

 nitrate, phosphate, chloride, total dis- 



solved minerals, and alkyl benzene sul- 

 fonate. No consistent relationship seems to 

 exist between alkalinity or hardness and 

 the degree of pollution. The most strik- 

 ing difference between the chemistry of 

 the water in the East Branch, where a 

 greater than average fish population was 

 taken, and the chemistry of the water in 

 the West Branch, where very few fish 

 were taken, was in the level of phosphates 

 and sulfates present. The West Branch 

 contained nearly four times the concen- 

 tration of phosphates and twice the con- 

 centration of sulfates found in the East 

 Branch. Concentrations of phosphates in 

 the West Branch were presumably due to 

 the great amount of detergents that pass 

 through the treatment plant of the Ur- 

 bana-Champaign Sanitary District. Alkyl 

 benzene sulfonate, one of the basic in- 

 gredients in most household detergents, 

 was nearly twice as concentrated in the 

 West Branch as in the East Branch. 



Fish Anomalies Caused by Pollution 



Many malformed fishes were taken 

 from the West Branch of the Salt Fork 

 above the sanitary disposal plant. Al- 

 though fair numbers of individuals were 

 taken in these collections, table 25, the 

 fish were small in size and many of them 

 had abnormally small, upturned mouths; 

 certain fins were partially or entirely miss- 

 ing. The creek chub, bluntnose, and com- 

 mon shiner seemed to be especially af- 

 fected. They may be the only species that 

 can reproduce in the polluted water, and 

 hence, in their embryonic development, 

 they may have been influenced by toxic 

 substances. 



Fish Kills 



Mention has been made of fish kills in 

 Champaign County. A kill of fish has 

 been observed annually for many years on 

 the upper Sangamon River. Dead fish have 

 been reported as far downstream as Ma- 

 homet. A severe kill occurred during the 

 middle of August in 1959 while we were 

 engaged in the third survey. Dead fish 

 were found in the upper Sangamon from 

 the mouth of Drummer Creek down- 

 stream as far as the town of Fisher. Along 

 the banks 3 miles north of Fisher, 21 spe- 

 cies were identified. Dead mussels, cray- 

 fish, tadpoles, and salamanders (Necturus) 



