Mexico, Missouri Water Turning Christmas Green

First posted on 11-24-2008

Missouri Department of Natural Resources field staff continue to investigate why the water coming from Mexico’s wastewater treatment plant is turning a local river bright green. Specialists from the state environmental lab were taking samples from the South Fork of the Salt River today to determine why a five-mile stretch of the river downstream from the wastewater treatment plant is turning color. The department, working with officials from Mexico, believes that the chemicals used at the plant to treat the wastewater are reacting with a chemical in wastewater being released by a local industry.

As of Friday afternoon, no cause had been determined, said Tim Reilly, chief of the department’s Water Quality Monitoring Section. “We don’t know what the constituent or chemical is yet,” Reilly said. “But it is turning the stream green.” So far, the effect seems to be limited to the color change of the river’s water, he said.

“We have not seen any dead fish,” Reilly said. “There does not seem to have been any impact on aquatic life.”

Mexico city officials first notified the department of the problem Wednesday, and staff from the department’s Northeast Regional Office in Macon were dispatched to conduct an initial investigation. The South Fork of the Salt River flows north away from Mexico approximately 20 miles before draining into Mark Twain Lake.