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( (). .--J r- ~(./, ..7 --'> Bj ~ /~O/ -r. : \ '" ICC'1Bl Q!\~""'lt\J~~ .,~;.. Slar.,ribune. Casper, Wyo.- TrOlla water lrllls fish in Sweetwater streanl ROCK SPRINGS (AP) - Wa- ter as blaek as coffee and as saltv as popcorn is running through 1 shan tributary of :he Big Sandy, kIlling all 11si1 and other ;rl1all or- ganisms in its path. The fluid. naturally-occurring trona water, was accident:1l1y unped hv the Bureau ofReclama- rion while it drilled toward an ane- sian well ~laY 28. Ironically: the drilling project was intended to pump more wa- ter into the half-mile long Bone Draw to improve habitat for fish, oificials said. Boxes and boxes of fish eggs had already been placed along the streambanks by Trout Unlimited and tbe Wyoming Game and Fish Department when BuRec acci. dentally tapped the trona water. The sodium-rich, black water killed the fish and eggs, according to Bureau of Land Management spokesman George Kaminski. "It's a dramatic thing when you look at this hillside. "It looks like someone is forc- ing black coffee to come out of the hill and coming out of Bone Draw there is a dark brown stain to the water. "All the sodium contaminanon kills the fish and little organisms," Kaminski said Monday. Bone Draw feeds Big Sandy, which flows into the Green River, which flows through the town of Green River, "where they get their drinking water," Kaminksi said. He emphasized that there-is no evidence of fish !ulled in the big- . ger rivers and drinking water is not in d~ngcr :It :I>is time due :0 the cocp~rative efforts of irrigation dlstriclS. ,be 3L~. BuRec. and :he U.S, C~asl Guard, which are in. creasing waler 110ws to purge the rivers and dilute tbe poisonous sodium. The aquifers are "so tolally ,at. urated. lhat its' going to take quite a while before all of these areas are purged of that trona water," Kaminski said. He didn't know how 100 g that would be. Kaminski said that BuRec had its Utah crew come to Sweetwater C ountv to drill the well in lale ~av. . And while the BL~ had warned that to get to the fresh water, Bu- Rec would have to drillthroullh the high-pressure - the pressure. was hillher than anyone expected. "We listed some precaulions that should be taken to avoid what had happened, As the drilling pro- gressed, they hit this level ofttona water and the pressure even ex- ceeded what our employees had anticipated. It's kind ofUke an un. derground blowout," the spokesman said. When the Irooa water was hir. it penneated into two aquifers above it. Those aquifers feed the springs that feed Bone Draw. Cement waso't adequate to seal the well and it took crews several days to get heavy drilling mut! from Baroil, more than 100 miles west, he said. Cjl:'S3 ----.... ~