Oil impact on Sakakawea fish to be studied

RIVERDALE, N.D. (AP) — Fisheries biologists plan to study what effect oil exploration on Lake Sakakawea has on fish.

Oil exploration under and around the lake has been going on since the 1970s, but activity in western North Dakota's oil patch is booming.

Tim Kolke with the Army Corps of Engineers says no one has firmly documented what effect seismic blasting used in oil exploration has on fish.

Steve Krentz with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will head the survey. Krentz is the project leader for the Missouri River Fish and Wildlife Service Conservation Office, and has spent much of his career studying the endangered pallid sturgeon.

Greg Power, fisheries chief for the state Game and Fish Department, says there are other species of concern such as paddle fish, along with game and forage fish.

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