Resident tells council thousands of fish died in Rock Creek after treatment-plant discharge; chloramine concerns raised

A Norman resident told the City Council on March 11 that thousands of fish were killed in Rock Creek and urged city officials to change treatment-plant discharge practices.

Jared Miller identified himself as a lifelong Norman resident and said he was “the one that found all the dead fish” after what he described as chlorinated discharge from a treatment facility. Miller told the council: “You flushed a lot of chlorine down Rock Creek and killed not some, but all all life in the creek. 6 miles of Rock Creek gone.” He said a proposed new water treatment plant on Tecumseh would discharge upstream from a pond he recently bought and that he feared those fish would be killed as well.

Another speaker during miscellaneous comments described technical differences between chlorine and chloramine and said chloramine is harder to remove for gardeners because it does not dissipate as quickly. That speaker stated: “With chloramine… you can't do that with chloramine. It takes a month.” The same speaker said city water’s chloramine limits use for agriculture and continuous gardening.

Resident Evan Dunn recommended point-of-use filtration for gardeners and referenced a filter product to remove chlorine or chloramine from hose water. These remarks were part of public comment; the transcript records the residents’ claims and concerns but does not record any immediate staff response, investigation direction, or official action taken by the council in the public meeting.

The council did not record any formal response or vote on the water-quality allegations during the meeting.