Just the other day I was crossing over the upper Chagrin river, one of our best steelhead rivers in Ohio, and noticed a tank truck parked at the bridge with its discharge hose over the side into the river. Because of traffic I couldn’t stop but I did try calling the sheriff’s office and after a couple of tries the sheriff’s operator said it sounded like a health department issue and not their problem. In disbelief I asked for the health department, and spoke to the health department receptionist and asked if they could send someone out to check on it. Unfortunately she was in no way going to ask someone to do their job and I would have to speak to a health department engineer to see if there was a violation going on. I got his voicemail, left a message, then hung up. Any ideas on how to report a possible illegal dumping?
Glenn -
With a BULLHORN in front of City Hall about noon !!
John
Contact the Feds right away. EPA, FBI, Dept. of Homeland Security, Federal Fish and Wildlife. Tell them exactly what you saw, where and when. You might want to express any concerns you have about eco-terrorism or malicious intent of what you saw.
This is when you find a stone tablet, and carve in I TOLD YOU SO, and the date.
Hey there Tig,
Are you SURE you’re not leaping to conclusions??. The scenario you present ,traffic etc., hardly makes me think that someone would be STUPID enough to be dumping toxins or whatever into the river. Is it possible this was a completely legal,scheduled somethingorother act ???, like planting fish??
Mark
tigfly,
Could this be what you saw?: “The Division of Wildlife annually stocks five Lake Erie tributary streams with 6-8” yearling Little Manistee River (Michigan) strain of steelhead. These fish migrate out into Lake Erie and spend the summer in the cooler part of the lake, before returning to streams during the fall through the spring." End Quote.
Doug
In many areas hereabouts, water tankers will drop a hose into a stream and draft water from it to fill their tank. Water for dust control, fire suppression, etc. is acquired that way. It could have been a simple benign operation, as well as something else…M.D.
I am with ModocDan on this one. Sounds like a water truck getting water. Which may or may not be legal in and of itself. License plate #s are handy things.
I agree with nighthawk.Contact the EPA.If it turns out to be something illegal let them handle it.I have seen some pretty amazing things happen in the public eye and one reason is because nobody suspects someone to be stupid enough to do it in public.
-Steve
If it is a legal act then reporting it to the authorities will do no harm to anyone. Indeed, we live in a post 9/11/01 world where reporting is encouraged. Not to be a smart a@# but I seem to recall some bad folks hijacking some airliners in broad daylight and then using them to do great harm. What makes you folks think the same thing cannot be done with a tanker truck? Can we tell if the tanker is pumping something into the water or pumping water into the truck? I would think that the authorities have already run live drills to this effect too. These are decisions for the authorities to make. I would report it.
the railroad comissioner has more authority over oilfield matters such as tank trucks & such… 1 call to your local railroad comissioner is all it takes & they get rite on it… i got 1 stopped from dumping saltwater into a local stream… had the hose hung over a bridge lettin water out as fast as he could so i called & they came rite out… that stream went into the sabine river which holds many kinds of fish but no trout… fired, lost his cdl & had to pay 1 hell of a fine… however it is not illegal for tankers to suck water from a stream into the tanks…
I agree it COULD have been a perfectly legal activity and sincerely hope it was, but as Eric mentioned it would not hurt to have it checked out. As far as a possible stocking with fish, there is no stocking as far up the river as I was, and it is usually done in spring to increase smolt survival. Whether it was legal or not, my main concern was if it was an illegal dumping I wanted to get it stopped ASAP. As it turned out, I wasn’t able to accomplish a thing.
Tig ODNR had no scheduled release that I can find around this time, It needs to be reported to ODNR, EPA.
2 words…Cam Corder. Then, if the authorities balk on investigating, give it to the local news broadcasters. And if it turns out to really be illegal, post it on YouTube.
Decio ad multitudo!
(Power to the people!)