Becky Manning awoke Saturday morning to a pond full of dead fish and its lingering odor.

Manning, 52, watched from her backyard as neighborhood fishers stared out at a pond with nothing to catch over the weekend.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

Water from a ruptured line Friday mixed with lime from a nearby road construction project and drained into a retaining pond off Tanner Road in Lantana. The lime killed some fish, one of which is shown Tuesday.

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“We are just very sad that the fish died,” she said. “People are always fishing.”

The fish died after a 16-inch water line was ruptured Friday as a crew from Ed Bell Con­struction was working on a road project along FM407 southeast of Ar­gyle.

The break caused about 1 million gallons of drinking water to flood the roadwork. The water mixed with calcium carbonate, also known as lime, which the construction company was using on the new road. The water and lime eventually flowed into the pond, County Commissioner Andy Eads said.

Eads said it took an hour to 90 minutes to stop the leak.

That sudden addition of lime to the water killed the fish, said Trent Lewis, an aquatic biologist with Pond Medics.

But the water-lime mixture was not deadly to other aquatic life, he said.

Eads said the county is working with the Lantana Freshwater Supply District board of directors to rectify the situation, which may include restocking the pond. The county is paying for the disposal of the dead fish, which still lined the banks of the pond Tuesday morning.

“The county will take responsibility,” he said.

Eads said the contractor was able to control the rupture before it flowed into a nearby water source, and the incident was not expected to delay construction on the project.

No financial estimate was available, Eads said.

“We don’t know the full scope of the problem,” he said.

DAN X. McGRAW can be reached at 940-566-6875. His e-mail address is dmcgraw@dentonrc.com .