Rotting fish removed from river

REDMOND, Wash. – More than 25 tons of salmon were taken from the Sammamish River, but no one was cheering.

The fish landed in the river when a Washington Transportation tractor-trailer rig went out of control on an exit ramp from State Route 520 near Marymoor Park in this suburb east of Seattle and landed upside down in the river Wednesday afternoon. The driver and passenger were treated for minor injuries.

Frozen for shipment, the 51,000 pounds of ground-up salmon soon melted and some started to rot as workers from NRC Environmental Services of Seattle struggled to remove the mess.

Becky Crosby, a company supervisor, said as many as 30 employees were on the job as the work continued around the clock into Friday. Wearing life jackets and rubber waders, workers used skiffs and cranes to retrieve the 20-foot cardboard boxes, loaded them into white plastic sacks and put the sacks into metal shipping containers.

Normally 50 pounds, the water-saturated boxes weighed about 80 pounds after being recovered, Crosby said.