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THE VAIL DAILY 970.949.0555 /vaildailycom <br />Arrowhead to Gilman are showing a 30 percent or <br />higher decline in the number of fish. <br />At this point, what happened is a mystery, and <br />more troubling is the fact that it reverses what had <br />been a trend of improving fish numbers in the Eagle <br />River_ <br />"I don't think anybody has a great idea why,- <br />said Bill Heicher, a retired 33 -year veteran of the <br />Colorado Division of Wildlife and fish counting <br />volunteer for the lash 15 years. "It's looking like <br />last year's fish-are basically not there- <br />Fish biologist John Woodling suggested it might <br />be a combination of factors including increased <br />of the river to natural events Tike last year's high <br />runoff ---the second- highest— on record. Another <br />possibility is the fish census his year was skewed <br />by higher- than- normal' nmoff that made catching <br />the fish more difficult, Woodling said. It's the 15th <br />year of counting the fish in the river. <br />Regardless, whatever is to blame, it has left <br />some of the fish in bad condition. <br />"A lot of fish near Mintum were in wretched <br />shape," Woodling said `They were skinny and thin_" <br />Woodling and others are going to review the <br />data gathered during two days of capturing and <br />measuring fish. last week, then compare that to <br />water quality data and to other data to see if the <br />numbers present a reason for the steep decline in <br />the numbers of fish. <br />Until this year, the revival of fish in-the river <br />below a seven -mile stretch killed by mine pollution <br />in the mid-1980s had been a spectacular success. <br />The numbers of aquatic bugs, -at fast glance, <br />appears to be the same as in previous years, Heicher <br />said, but he said analysis of the data will validate that- <br />That overall analysis of the fish and invertebrate data <br />could, as it has in past year's, take several months. <br />See Trout in trouble, page A3 <br />w <br />r= <br />4 <br />By Cliff Thompson <br />DAMY STAFF WR= <br />While the quality of the water in the Eagle <br />River below the Eagle Mine has hugely improved <br />since the mine spill in the mid- 1980s, river watch- <br />ers fear the problems there aren't over. <br />Above the mine there are several steep hill- <br />sides full of waste rock from mining activity over <br />the last 135 years that have been restrained by a <br />trio of wood - cribbing retaining walls that are <br />about to give way. <br />Those retaining walls weren't part of the EPA s <br />Superfund cleanup of the mine because they were <br />outside the boundary of the work, said Caroline <br />Bradford of the Eagle River Watershed Council. <br />What, exactly, those retaining walls are holding <br />up, isn't known, but it soon will be, Bradford.said. <br />Students from Colorado State University are com- <br />pleting an assessment of the Eagle River and. one <br />of the things they're analyzing is what material is <br />being restrained by the retaining wall and what <br />harm it presents to the river. <br />`These rock piles never were owned by (mine <br />owner) Viacom," Bradford said. "Those rock piles <br />are one of the highest priorities in the watershed." <br />Bradford said one of the jobs of the scientists <br />making the assessment is to determine what it <br />would cost to stabilize the retaining walls. . <br />�s <br />>y. <br />Y1� <br />'7 <br />LR <br />R <br />