Australia is engaged in a significant cleanup effort after a river in western New South Wales saw the deaths of millions of fish.
According to authorities, fish will be removed from “high density areas,” but it won’t be able to remove every carcass.
Police told the locals that the water supply was still of “high quality.”
In order to coordinate the reaction and monitor the water quality, an emergency centre has been established in the western NSW town of Menindee.
NSW Police Commander Brett Greentree described the operation as “very challenging and significant,” adding that the occurrence was “unprecedented in terms of the millions of fish which have died.”
“The water supply through the Menindee treatment plant works is monitored around-the-clock… I feel certain that the water quality is where it should be right now,” he told the press.
“However, I must be really honest with the neighborhood and ask if every fish will be taken out. According to the information I have, I don’t think so, he continued.
Local resident Graeme McCrabb posted a Facebook video of rotting fish filling the riverbank with the caption, “the worst is still coming.”
Over the weekend, the area’s temperature soared to 40C (104F).
While this is happening, volunteers from the conservation organization OzFish have started a search and rescue effort to pull as many surviving native fish out of the river as they can.
Braeden Lampard informed the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that his crew was moving the saved fish to a holding tank while describing the odor as “putrid.”
He calculated that natural species like golden perch and bony bream made up 85% of the dead fish, while non-native varieties like carp made up the remaining 15%.
The majority of the floating remains would settle to the river bed within 48 hours, according to Cassie Price, director of programs at OzFish.
“Getting the majority of the [fish] biomass out of the river would be pretty unlikely. She told the BBC that because it will sink, there would be a slight nutrient increase, which will be bad for the water quality.
She continued, “It will probably result in algal blooms, which will cause more problems for a while.”
According to investigators, the deaths were brought on by hypoxic blackwater, a phenomena that naturally occurs and results in extremely low oxygen levels.
State government organizations declared they were discharging water of higher quality to raise dissolved oxygen levels and that they would cooperate with federal organizations to identify the root cause.
The most recent incident comes after a similar large fish die-off in the same region in 2018.
The Murray-Darling Basin, Australia’s largest river system, includes the Darling-Baaka River.
Recent droughts and increased human use have put pressure on its environment, and major flooding from storms and heavy rains last year further harmed it.
Authorities claimed that once floodwaters subsided, “significantly increased numbers of fish in the system” contributed to the most recent die-off.
