ANDERSON COUNTY, Ky. — Days after a mysterious white foam was found covering the water in a Kentucky creek, officials say it was caused by dog shampoo.
Video posted by The Anderson News shows the foam running down Cedar Brook, which empties into the Kentucky River. The video’s caption says Danny Robinson first spotted the foam and alerted public safety officials, who immediately began investigating the cause.
Robinson said he first noticed the foam while eating dinner at home with his wife. “Within 15 minutes, the whole creek went from a few inches to a foot of thick foam,” Robinson told WDKY. “I said, ‘We gotta make some calls, this is serious.’”
Bart Powell, the county’s public safety director, told the Lexington Herald Leader that the foamy substance had piled up in areas to 6 feet or more and was flowing for 2 to 3 miles.
The Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet told WYMT it had determined the cause of the foam as Glo-Marr Pet Products Inc. in Lawrenceburg, which had released dog shampoo. That shampoo got into a storm drain and then discharged into the creek.
In a statement to WDKY, an official from the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet said “a contractor was on site today to recover whatever material was left after the spill. The stream was measured for dissolved oxygen and pH and there was no apparent effect on wildlife.”
A vice president at Glo-Marr Pet Products Inc. told WDKY the foam was likely the result of a broken pipe, which they are working to find and fix.