By Associated Press
Tuscaloosa, AL – State scientists and biologists say raw sewage spills were not responsible for causing a massive fish kill on the Black Warrior River. Tuscaloosa Water and Sewer Superintendent Maurice Sledge said somewhere between 12-and-50-thousand gallons of raw sewage spilled from a Jack Warner Parkway pumping station on September 25th. But Alabama Department of Environmental Management water quality scientists said the spill was not large enough to cause a fish kill in a river as large as the Black Warrior. The spill occurred after fish had begun dying in a nearly 20-mile stretch of the river between Moundville and Akron. A-D-E-M officials maintain that the kill was the result of a natural phenomenon caused by a heavy rain on September 23rd.