The following news release from PEI Gov E-Mail List.

The Department of Environment, Energy and Forestry and Environment Canada are investigating a reported fish kill in West Prince.

Dead fish were discovered on a two kilometre section of the east branch of the Montrose River on Tuesday.

The incident was reported by the Huntley-Montrose-Kildare Watershed Association.

Heavy rain fell on P.E.I. on Saturday and Sunday.

Environment officials have been on site collecting samples of fish, water and soil for analysis.

Officials are on site today continuing their investigation.

P.E.I. fish kill being investigated
http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2010-07-14/article-1564982/P.E.I...

Later that day, the government released a followup. Note how the reporter remarks on the push by officials on the heavy rain theme. You will notice with every news release, there will be mention of heavy rains

Environmental investigators probing discovery of dead fish on P.E.I. river

Environmental investigators probing discovery of dead fish on P.E.I. river
Published on July 14th, 2010

CHARLOTTETOWN - Federal and provincial investigators are looking into the discovery of dead fish along a two-kilometre section in the West Prince area of Prince Edward Island.

Dead fish were discovered along a stretch of the east branch of the Montrose River on Tuesday.

Officials at the province's Department of Environment, Energy and Forestry and Environment Canada were called in by a local watershed group.

Samples of fish, water and soil have been collected for analysis.

The department noted that heavy rain fell on P.E.I. on Saturday and Sunday, raising the possibility that something may have flushed into the water.

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/Canada---World/Society/2010-07-14/article-1...

Fish kill investigated in P.E.I.

CBC News

P.E.I. environment officials are investigating a kill of what may be thousands of fish in the Montrose River on the western end of the Island.

Rosanne MacFarlane, freshwater fisheries biologist for the province, told CBC News on Wednesday a section of the stream just under two kilometres in length was affected, on the east branch of the Montrose River upstream from Marchbank Pond. The river runs into the Kildare River, which runs into the Gulf of St. Lawrence south of Tignish.
The Montrose runs into the Kildare River in western P.E.I.The Montrose runs into the Kildare River in western P.E.I. (canmaps.com)

The kill was reported by the local watershed management group Tuesday, but could be related to Sunday's heavy rains.

"The fish are starting to decompose. They've been dead for a couple of days at least, and so it's getting harder to pick them up," MacFarlane said.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/story/2010/07/14/pei-...

Government investigating Montrose fish kill

Department officials collected water and soil samples from in and around the stream on Tuesday.

“General water chemistry, water quality in the stream itself and any sites of possible land wash are sampled for chemicals in the soil and standing water,” she noted.

The samples are sent to Environment Canada for analysis. Results won’t be known for at least a week.

The enhancement crew collected about 70 dead trout Tuesday and Wednesday, many of them already badly decomposed. It was anticipated many more fish, possibly even in the thousands, died. Small ones could go undetected and other ones might have floated out of the stream.

MacFarlane was back at the stream Wednesday.

“Today we’re going to try to get an estimate on the population of fish in the section of the stream which is unaffected, where there’s still live fish,” she said. “We’ll just do some electro-fishing. We’ll find the density of fish in typical habitat above and it will give us an idea on the number of fish that would have been throughout the section that was affected. “

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/News/Local/2010-07-15/article-1567527/Gover...