1991: Dunsmuir, CA
In 1991, a train owned by Southern Pacific derailed outside of Dunsmuir, a city in northern California, and spilled 19,000 gallons of metam sodium, which is used as a herbicide, into the Upper Sacramento River. Scientists were not allowed near the water for three days; when they were able to get to the site, they found all the fish, reptiles, and other living organisms within a nearly 40-mile radius had died.
Still, experts say that the river was able to bounce back.
“It started to recover within a week,” Mark Stopher, who monitored the site for the Department of Fish and Game, told a local news station in 2011. “Probably within three to four years the fish populations were essentially recovered.”
