Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Railroad timber mistake

Just thought I would share a quick lesson learned.

So here is the situation I have been renovating the guest house on the backside of the property the road to get back there is not maintained as in graveled. Running back and forth in soggy conditions my truck started to make some decent sized ruts. To combat this problem I decided to use some discarded railroad timbers from the nearby tracks. Well the rain continued the road got worse and all that nice water decided to go into the ponds which has turned them brown with a film.
The Brown tint I'm assuming is from the suspended clay which is rich in the soils around my house. The film/sheen though after following it back to what I can best tell is the origin point is....The railroad timbers which as we all know are treated with creosote. So exactly how badly did I screw up time or perhaps a seasoned veteran of pond management can tell me or give me an idea of how to best neutralize the situation.

I would be very surprised if creosote from old railroad ties had any adverse effect on the pond.

I guess my concern would be if you had a film covering the entire pond. I would think that could inhibit the pond's ability to exchange gases with the atmosphere.

Edit: Spraying an oil film on BOWs is/was a common practice of controlling mosquitos by preventing O2 from entering the water and suffocating the larvae.

Creosote will kill fish easy. GOOGLE it and you will find loads of personal stories as well as civil litigation and city/state/federal cleanup examples. The volume of creosote along with the volume of water, the quality of the water, etc. all play a role in whether or not creosote will kill fish.

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=creosote+pond

I don't recall creosote ever causing a problem when used for walls or dock pillars in a pond. "Old" railroad timbers have been rained on for years with the runoff entering the waters surrounding the tracks without issue before, so I don't think you will have a bit of trouble from them being on your road. IIRC, most litigation was initiated by the EPA. I have seen RR Tie piles in the Kansas City bottoms that were 30 feet tall and covering 40-50 acres in an attempt to try infusing epoxy into the ties to seal the creosote and reuse the old ties, but what I never saw or heard of, was any fish killed in the Kaw River only a hundred yards or so away, where the piles drained into. When the pile caught fire during a lightening storm sometime around 1990, it burned for months and there is no telling how much water was pumped on it till it finally burned out...still, no reports of dead fish in the river.

All right well looks like the waiting game now to see what if anything happens. I'll get a mason jar this weekend and do a jar test to make sure that what I am seeing is actually suspended clay might as well get two so I can test the waters PH and other levels as well.

Perhaps its an oil residue and not creosote. Possibly even from a oil spot on the ground that isn't even related to the roadway, but got washed in with all that rain.

http://www.dec.ny.gov/docs/wildlife_pdf/woodline.pdf

B. Creosote:
1. Creosote-treated wood used in water does not pose a significant risk to
aquatic life. Any actual impacts are likely to be short term and occur when the
treated wood is first installed in the water. A thin film or sheen frequently appears
on the surface of the water around a creosote-treated wood structure immediately
after the structure is put in place. The sheen results from low quantities of volatile
PAHs leaching from the wood. The sheen can be controlled by the installation of
an absorbent boom around the treated wood structure, but that might serve to
concentrate the chemical odor present while the materials evaporate from the
water. Aquatic organisms that dwell immediately at the air-water interface could
be impacted while the sheen is present. The presence of a sheen, however, is not
indicative of the presence of contaminants from creosote treated wood in the water
column under the sheen.
5
2. Creosote treated wood should be aged at least three months in air
following treatment, before being installed in water. This will allow some of the
volatile, low and medium molecular weight components to evaporate, reducing or
eliminating the period of time during which a sheen is visible on the water�s surface
after the wood is installed in the water. For effective evaporation to occur during
the aging, the treated wood needs to be stacked in such a way that air can circulate
freely through the pile. The wood should not be stacked at a location where
precipitation running off the wood could drain into a natural water body.

Creosote by itself and in large quantities will adversely affect fish, leaching of creosote over time potentially could also--depends on quantity. There a few types of creosote and each one has different properties and levels a toxicity to animals, fish, and humans. Coal tar creosote is harsher than the others. On most power poles and telephone poles you can determine type of tree, creosote concentration/type, and method used.

I would do the jar test just as Rex mentioned and take a water sample to test the properties of the water.

I've seen an oily sheen on water from what I thought was decaying material that washed in to the water too.

Personally? I wouldn't lose any sleep over it. The % of creosote probably isn't high enough to worry about. But, if getting the water tested will let you sleep easier, get it done!!