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When The Patoka River Turned Gold

In the 1940’s many things were considerable different in several ways, but as far as the Patoka River two significant things were different . One big difference was that water ran down the “Old River” in a large enough amount to allow fairly good size fish to live there year around. Now day’s fish only come up into the“Old River” when the Patoka River is at flood stage. This is usually in the spring of the year.

A second difference is that we now have IDEM (Indiana Dept. of Environmental Management). The IDEM keeps a close eye on what goes into the Patoka River, this wasn’t always the case.

In the 1940’s when the spring rains came the river was affected and a certain amount of flooding occurred depending on the rain that season. The coalmines in Pike County were also affected by the rain water If the coalmine whether it was underground or strip had water in it mining was difficult or impossible. In order to alleviate the water problem the coalmines either drained or pumped the water out. Most of this water inevitably ended up in the Patoka River.

The Patoka River became a toxic place for fish, mussels, turtles, crawfish and anything else living in the river. The larger fish usually realized the peril and went downstream before the poison water arrived. Many of the smaller fish did not realize the danger in time and were forced to try to save themselves in the small streams and springs along the river.

Many boys and girls when they heard the news of poison water in the river headed to their favorite stream with a bucket or two. We could literally choose the fish we wanted and catch them by hand. That was where I learned about the sharp fins on either side of a catfish. We would take home enough fish for a few days, cleaning some to eat and putting several in the cows watering tank for later.

I’m sure raccoons and other animals had a feast for a few days. These remaining fish usually perished from poison water or lack of oxygen in the small streams available to them.

The Patoka River took on an eerie appearance after the water from the mines had been in our area for a few days. The water became a clear as any you would ever see, you could see right down to the bottom and see everything there. Nothing moved it was either gone or dead; the riverbed was gold in color from the sulphur in the coalmine water. The coal in the Pike County area that was being mined had a high sulphur content and sulphur has a gold or copper color.

The coalmines must have been shut down from this practice because I don’t remember it as I got older or maybe the water was released by accident during the years the Patoka River turned gold.