Old Wildlife Refuge May Be Near End

About six months after a huge fish die-off at the Stillwater Wildlife Management Area, scientists say its centuries as a refuge may be nearing an end.

The 164,000-acre refuge is evaporating faster than the limited flow of water into it can keep pace. And as the water carries agricultural runoff into the area, the toxic salts increase as the level of the marsh drops.

About 7 million fish died at the reserve in February as the water receded and its salinity increased. Another 1,500 birds died in an apparently unrelated outbreak of avian cholera.

Wildlife biologists now say they are finding high levels of toxic elements in the water supplies and in the fish and birds still living at the refuge. The number of deformities in birds this summer surpasses anything seen in the last 30 years, they said.

While the scientists still aren’t prepared to blame the water quality directly for the deformed birds, they are continuing to find more evidence to support it as the reason.

About 350 miles of drainage ditches funnel water from the Truckee and Carson rivers to the Lahontan Valley. And when the farmland is through with it, the water drains into Stillwater, carrying boron, selenium, arsenic and chromium into the refuge.

A mercury level of four parts per million is considered high for white pelicans, yet some preliminary studies indicate as much as 220 parts per million in the tissue of some birds.

Levels of the other trace elements also are high in birds at the refuge.

In an effort to save some of the nesting areas, Stillwater manager Ron Anglin and U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist Steve Thompson will decide in the next couple of weeks which of the dwindling marshes should receive most of the runoff. The rest will be left to dry up.

They had hoped to maintain as much as 8,000 acres. But now they say they probably will be able to keep only about 5,000 acres viable while they wait for a winter they hope will provide considerably more water than last year’s abnormally dry rainy season did.