James McMurtry on dead fish on I-40 in NC

[Roland99]

There are reports of fish dying from being stranded on I-40 in North Carolina when the flood waters receded. I would argue that these fish didn't die from stranding, they were dead already when the water went down or they wouldn't have wound up way up on the road. Live fish would have swam down into the ditch, following the water as it sought its level. I've found a lot of fish bones after floods, but always in low places that eventually dried up. No one seems to be asking about what killed all those fish. It could be useful for the people who had to wade around in that water to know what killed the fish.

A musician gets it. An aware musician tho. But still.

The M$M never would ask.

[YessirAtsaFact]

1. Duke Power coal ash?

Hog shit?

[Va Lefty]

7. I think we have a winner!

[Arkansas Granny]

2. I wondered about that, too. It doesn't make sense.

Maybe this happens, but I've never heard of it.

[clementine613]

3. Rethugs Making the Environment Great Again

Thanks, Trump.

[mnhtnbb]

4. I live in Raleigh, NC. Wallace, NC, where these fish were washed off the road is 40 miles north

of Wilmington, NC, where Florence made landfall. My guess? Those fish got there not from flooding, but from a fishnado. It would be an easy matter to identify whether they are fresh water fish (from a lake or river nearby) or salt water fish. I've been looking at maps, and the only fresh water source near Wallace that I see near I-40 is Lake Leamon, which isn't a big lake.

[jmowreader]

12. There's a tributary of the Cape Fear River near it

This is the Facebook page of Jeff Garrett, an employee of the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10216264615995685&set=pcb.10216264617955734&type=3&theater

(He has a real beauty of a picture of a very large - looks like about three feet long - piscivorous fish slurping down as many smaller fish as he could. There's some sort of white meat-looking mass on him about where his dorsal fin would go...I don't know if fish really can explode from overeating, but if they can he did.)

These appear to be saltwater fish, and if they are it's simple to figure out what killed them: Saltwater fish need to live in water with enough salt in it. If it's not there, the fish die quickly. The floodwater wouldn't have had enough salt to keep the fish alive.

[Roland99]

14. Would storm surge have gone that far?

[jmowreader]

15. It would have been ducted up the river

Hurricanes are weird. I've been through several, and every one behaved differently.

[mnhtnbb]

16. I'm looking at Google maps now and the Cape Fear River meanders to within a mile of I-40 on the east

Wallace is west of I-40. And you're right, there is what looks like a small tributary to the Cape Fear River that is perpendicular to I-40 at one point. There may be a small bridge for I-40 to go over what looks like a creek. It's hard to imagine there would be that many fish in that tiny tributary, though.

It's a mystery. It could be surge pushed fish up river and into that tributary from the storm. It was battering the coast for a very long time. We have seen photos of a very long stretch of I-40 completely submerged from flooding, but I thought that was closer to Wilmington. Wallace is 40 miles up the road from Wilmington.

[GoCubsGo]

5. Well, asphalt is pretty toxic.

It's basically tar sands oil, and all of the nasty stuff in it is bound to leach out of the pavement when the roads are covered with water for days on end. Add to that all the oil, transmission fluid, and other poisonous stuff that leaks onto the pavement on a regular basis from all the vehicles that travel on it year after year. And, it has been pretty hot down here. The warmer water gets, the less oxygen remains dissolved in it, and a layer of dark pavement underneath heats that water up even more. The fish could have suffocated.

[NickB79]

6. Fish are stupid. They get stranded

It happened a few years ago here when the river running through town flooded. 20-lb carp left stranded on the sidewalks all over the place.

Great compost for my garden though.

[ghostsinthemachine]

8. Yep.

One of my favorite people. Did you know he was born on the bus, the Ken Kesey Acid Test bus? Did you know that Kesey's widow Faye is now married to Larry McMurtrey?

[Roland99]

9. "I was not aware of that"

[pecosbob]

10. Were they salt-water species, or fresh?

These are the questions to ask...if they were local fresh water species then, yes that begs the question what killed them.

[cstanleytech]

11. The last thing we need are more conspiracy theories like this.

While most fish do in fact make their way back into the main water areas a number of them still get stranded during floods and the bigger the flood the more such fish you will see.
You want a real problem though look at whats happening down around Florida with that red tide problem they are having.

[blitzen]

13. I love James...have talked to him about fishing...

when meeting him after shows in Baton Rouge. He is a brilliant person and knows what he's talking (and singing about). One of the great artists of our time.