Mine pollution dries up fishing holes far downstream

Pollution from mining can damage streams and dry up fishing holes many miles from where the digging and blasting occurs, research out of Michigan State University has found.

"We've been surprised that even a single mine in headwaters might influence larger rivers miles downstream," said Wesley Daniel, a research associate at Michigan State University, in a news release. "Mines have a much stronger influence on fishes than has been assumed. It's important, when considering the location of a new mine, to not just look local, but look way downstream.:

Daniel and his colleagues developed a method for crunching mountains of data that tell the connected stories of the nation's streams and rivers. They concluded that mines create "regional stress," and cited an an example of pollutants from a mine in a headwater stream in Kentucky that was disrupting the breeding grounds of bass in Tennessee rivers.

"The quality of headwater streams will determine quality of rivers," Daniel said. "The condition of small streams that flow into larger rivers will affect downstream fish communities. Everything is cumulative -- again and again we can see that the effects of one mine can be associated with altered fish communities."

The work, co-written with nine others, was published last week in the journal, Ecological Indicators.