Fish kill on the way!

[JEWIENEWIE]

It is with not much suprise or pleasure that a big fish kill is going to happen in the richmond river ballina.:-/ I run a surf school here in byron and have a two day camp i was running at lennox head but after speaking to council thaey have informed me that all the beaches in the ballina lennox head area hae been closed due to dangerous levels of pollutants which were found in the water after testing. The pollutants are coming from the richmond river and when i asked about a possible fish kill she daid that it was inevitable>:( :'(The beaches will stay that way for at least a week, possibly two?
Jewie:(

[pommy]

Unfortunately, that's pretty much the same info. I've had.

Rob.
Ballina

[onerabbit]

I remember the last kill we had, thousands of fish either going down the river, or piling up on the banks, the whole town stunk of dead fish for about 2 weeks.

Not good.

Muzz

[Al_Macka]

Gidday Jewinewie
Seams when the Richman reaches a level that gives town like
Woodburn ( for example of water hieght only) serious flooding , that the water is reaching areas where not the norm & must be dragging something (ie chemical, over flowing shit ponds ) back into the river system causing these so called FISH KILLS......
As we no local councils r more interested in lining there pockets from land (property) deals it going 2 take some time to whot causes this state of affair................. Maybe now with THE BEACHES CLOSING the council will have 2 answer more questions.............
Even since the opening of the shit pipe outlet between Boulder & Flat Rock it has not caused any beach closures , so the river has 2 be picking up some mean hardware some where UP STREAM...................
With only a resent move 2 Cairns (2 years) after 29years @ Lennox i just like to throw in some thoughts 2 ur thread.......... Like i say thier my opinion, hope this stirs up ur post

CHEERS .... MACKA

[JEWIENEWIE]

She even mentioned that they had to pull a few dead cows that had been washed up on the beaches.!!!! Dont know what or who is to blame for the possible kill, time may tell, but just a shame, all the new jewie fingerlings that were released not to long ago probably dont stand a chance.:'( :'(
Jewie

[mowerman]

My uncle is on the home place at Shannonbrook, south of Casino.

Everything ends up in the Richmond.

This time it was 29 cows and calves and a gas drilling rig and gear that the prospectors left over christmas.



Rod.

[stonecold]

G'Day Jewie unfortunately I think it is inevitable.
I was fortunate enough to catch up with Rabbi on the south wall yesterday. He said that he had already seen a flathead in the 10lb bracket float out of the river upside down to become shark poo.
The DPI and the farmers have done alot over the past 5 years to try and reduce the effects of such a flood but its a mammoth task and to be honest I dont think they will ever completely solve the problem. Fingers crossed for our rivers that the temperatures stay down a little and the effects of rotting organic matter are not as severe as they could be.

[RayDeR]

G'day!

Just as the cows find it difficult to breathe muddy water, I imagine fish have the same difficulty.

Imagine a lazy 10lb flathead sitting on the bottom waiting for a feed to swim by. Suddenly, the world changes. It is full of muddy, not salty water. He finds he does not need farm chemicals to kill him. Unfortunately, it is too late for him to do anything about it.

RayDeR

[reelemin1974]

I would have thought that the fish would have time to get out....after all most of the rain was well over a week ago.

I have actually heard it is not so much Chemicals but lack of oxygen in the water due to a particular type of soil somewhere around here, But I am sure the millions of cane farms around here don't help.

[RayDeR]

G'day Reelemin

I thought they would have too. But the dead ones prove they don't. I guess there are stupid fish like there are stoopid people who drown themselves or have to be rescued from floodwaters.

Don't fish die in overwhelming muddy fresh flows where there are no cane farms?

RayDeR

[onerabbit]

Plenty of fish on Nth wall & main beach today, I didn't bother, but watched a mate for a while, some nice flattys & saw another bream on the wall about 8-900gm.

Muzz

[stonecold]

I think you'll find a lot of fish do get out however when I was on the wall on Thursday there were a lot trying to swim back up river into the mud torrents. The black water is still to come. I guess its just instinct. There was school after school of mullet trying to get back up river. Swimming straight back onto a death trap.

[disorderly]

Dont worry about it too much fella's.
There may be some fish deaths in the short term but the mighty Richmond will bounce back quickly.
I was living in Lismore about 20 years ago and there was 3 floods in the one year.It's a huge catchment and its really incredible just how much crap gets washed out at ballina.
My uncle was leasing the South Ballina Caravan park at the time and I used to fish off the Southern breakwall and south ballina beach.
Soon as the waters recede the fish will be back in full force.

Scott

[pommy]

Sorry, can't agree with that.

The river hasn't, IMO, recovered from the last kill. How can fish numbers and sizes recover if they are hammered every 3 or 4 years?!

If you look at the time that it takes for fish like bream and flathead to reach breeding age then the numbers of fish must be on the way down.

The mullet seem to be the best survivors. The floodwater washes a lot out to sea where some are eaten. Most avoid the pollution and return after the flood.

Rob.
Ballina

[disorderly]

Sorry, can't agree with that.

The river hasn't, IMO, recovered from the last kill. How can fish numbers and sizes recover if they are hammered every 3 or 4 years?!

If you look at the time that it takes for fish like bream and flathead to reach breeding age then the numbers of fish must be on the way down.

The mullet seem to be the best survivors. The floodwater washes a lot out to sea where some are eaten. Most avoid the pollution and return after the flood.

Rob.
Ballina

Flooding in a catchment of that size is a periodical event and if it doesn,t happen again this year it will happen again next year or the year after that.
no point being too worried about it.
I'd be more worried about the pro's taking out tonnes of Jewies in a single hit.

Scott

[onerabbit]

No I dont agree either, after the big kill years ago, the river still hasn't recovered to be half of what it was beforehand, the flood may be natural, but the poisons coming down with it arn't .

Muzz

[disorderly]

No I dont agree either, after the big kill years ago, the river still hasn't recovered to be half of what it was beforehand, the flood may be natural, but the poisons coming down with it arn't .

Muzz

hi muzz,

What's changed to make it so much more poisonous now?

Scott

[whykickacatalong]

This area has had floods for alot more years than we have had cane fields in the ground. These days many more chemicals used are not residual and the fertilizers used are more atune to what is naturally found in untilled ground. Yes there are many chemicals used on farms but they are 'generally' getting better compared to 20yrs back. Personally I would rather see a large flood like this than a small one purely from the fact that the chemicals are diluted more and flushed quicker and more adequately from the system.

[Matty_M]

The pesticides from the cane fields aren't good when they get washed into the river, but that doesn't directly strip the dissolved oxygen which is the reason the Richmond has fish kills. They do however reduce the diversity and abundance of freshwater fish. The assimilation capacity of the tides is great enough to disperse the pesticides.

The cane drains dug by the farmers expose Acid Sulphate Soils, which, when they are exposed to air react, and are then washed into the river after big flow events. This water reduces the dissolved oxygen levels. This kills the fish through oxygen depletion, the 'lucky' ones that escape this plume of low D.O are highly stressed, which lowers their imune system leaving them highly susceptible to red spot disease, which then kills them...

The cane farmers and other farmers have also drained the 'old' wetlands and filled them in for farming. So the water instead of gradually leaking out, rushes out through these drains. Therse drains also contain 'black water' a sludge which again strips the river of its D.O. If any water is trapped on the farmers pasture grass, it kills it within 24hrs, which is then eaten by a bacteria which also strips the dissolved oxygen levels...fish kills

We can't take away the farmers cause we will have nothing to eat!! But certain types of agricultural production which run at a loss, and are farmed in other counties for a lot less, should go...as this type of farming is the main culprit. Not just during a flood. But all the time in the frshwater reaches...

Cheers

[RayDeR]

G'day Matty!

What pesticides do cane farmers use?I want to know cos if that is ending up in the river then it is ending up in the fish.

I imagine there are tests doneof the river which can identify the types of pesticides in the river.

Other wise all you have written about pesticides from the farms is similar to the whale research in Japan.

Farming is cheaper in other countries because of slave type wages paid to peasants. Yeah, we ought get all our food from them cos they do it cheaper. Not!!!

RayDeR

[pommy]

Greetings!

The Richmond catchment and beyond has been stuffed about for a number of years. The black water mentioned earlier that is washed out of the cane drains seems to be the main culprit for de-oxygenating the water. Any organic material ie dead plant material acts as a nutrient source for the microorganisms that deplete dissolved oxygen.

It may be that in previous years the drainage of the Richmond catchment allowed a lot of this material to escape into the river slowly, rather than in one huge rush, every heavy rain and flood.

Acid sulphate soils don't, I think, produce deoxygenated water but do stress fish that are already struggling with low oxygen.

The building of the Pacific Highway upgrade on deep pilings and foundations across the flood plain will further limit the drainage of the catchment.

Regards, Rob.
Ballina

[stonecold]

For those who would like to know alittle more. Follow there links

http://naturalresources.nsw.gov.au/soils/what.shtml

http://naturalresources.nsw.gov.au/soils/what_effects.shtml

[Fishoboy11]

That is a real shame. Haven't been fishing in the Richmond before, but was plannign to have a few days in Ballina in mid Feb and take my boys out for a fish. I guess that is not going to be such a good plan now.

Does any body know how bad the Tweed River has copped it. Maybe I'll take the kids to the Tweed instead???

Heh - BTW, great forum you all have going here, and very active :-)

[whykickacatalong]

I was having a bit of a chat to my mother last night re the floods, fish and kills as we have lived in the area since my great grandfather in Lismore with a beach shack at Lennox Head, later to become my home since around 1920. The whole family have been keen fisho's of the Richmond so I wondered if fish kills have always been common.

From her memory there were a few kills around the Shaws bay area after floods but one thing of note she said was that after the 54flood my grandfather brought home some caught Tarwine and Bream with redspot on them. He had never seen this before and did not know what it was. So from what I can gather , pre 54 was redspot free in that area. It would be interesting if others can confirm this and if anyone knows what chemicals (which were taking off around then I believe) were getting used in the few years before that flood.

From what I was told last week by the SES the blackwater come from the Bungawalbin Scrub area as well as alot of backwater is there (seen from the air as a dark black colour) which has been pushed up with the flood and will be draining back out at the moment. I assume this is just as bad as the cane drain water yet from my understanding is a natural occurrence.

[stonecold]

History now:'( Front page of the Northern Star

"ROTTING" RIVER KILLS INDUSTRY

Looking at complete river fishing closures for 6 months as per the 2001 event

[reelemin1974]

Yeah, I live Near the ferry and my house STINKS at the moment, Can't wait for the rotting fish!!! I have heard today it is carnage on the river ATM. Weird how it's only ever the richmond????

[reelemin1974]

http://www.northernstar.com.au/localnews/storydisplay.cfm?storyid=3760764&thesection=localnews&thesubsection=&thesecondsubsection=

[stonecold]

On a further note I dont think the description does this disaster justice. So far we have talked about the "FISH KILL". The media also outlines the disaster of the "FISH KILL" truth be known its not only the fish that are the problem.
What about the things that we cant see. We cant see the yabbies, worms, snails, crustaceans etc etc. Stick a blood worm in a jar of water with a pH of 3 and no oxygen and see how long he lasts. Same goes for a yabby.
My point is that we can all see the devastation caused by the "FISH KILL" however the real ramifications are much longer term than the fish just returning to the system after all the black water has gone.
The yabbies cant swim out the mouth of the river to escape theyre "stuck" end of story. The fish are not gong to return in numbers until theres some tucker for them to eat!

For those that missed it on the news heres some pics

[reelemin1974]

I went for a drive this afternoon, there is dead fish everywhere. I saw heaps of dead mullet and heaps of dead flathead. This was all near the ferry. Quite a few whiting mainly small and a few bream. But if you go to the mouth they are floating out the walls in the thousands, and like stonecold says, all the yabbies worms crabs, Everything. It's actually quite sad.

[gleeeza]

God I hope it doesn't ripen up like it did in 2001, the smell was putrid for yonks. I am at Lennox and am hoping for some northeasters to send the smell the other way but the way things are shaping up I am not hopeful.

I just got back from a flood down at the Bellinger which was minor by comparison to this one but the speed that the inundated paddocks died off was nothing short of amazing and this crap is depleting the oxygen levels almost instantly I am told which can have only one out come. The pong on the drive home kicked in at about Woodburn and continued up around Broadwater where water was lying and drying out in paddocks(not cane they seemed too well drained), this crappy cooler weather could be a saving grace!!!

A mate who comes from this area and has had a real good go(fishing) for very little result in the Bellinger has found out that there has been a river marshall appointed to monitor and report on the river quality and possible measures to be taken to improve water quality. It remains to be seen what can or will be done with the recommendations down that way and you can only wonder if a step in that direction would be appropriate here also, the obvious problem I guess is the fact that the catchment is in so many different shires where as the Bellinger only has one.

I was impressed with the quality of the data collected from the Bellinger and I can't recall seeing reports anywhere near as detailed from this council or any other related bodies, as some earlier stated, maybe the the forced beach closures could stir them up a bit. We can only hope.

Gleeeza

[ida]

gday all the powers that be are having a meeting 2day on the river to see if they are going to close it to ALL FISHING .i hope they close it for months .Lets hope they do cheers ida

[woodchopper]

This event is a catchment scale problem not just a farming issue. Eveyone who lives in a catchment impacts on the water quality and environmental condition. This flood was a rare event and huge amounts of water removed a large buildup of organic matter from all over the catchment. This flushing on such a large scale has led to the images we are seeing today.

Several key steps to managing this issue:

Save and repair riparian areas as they assist in trapping sediments and organic matter from washing into creeks and rivers.
Reduce or remove completly the stock/humans that shit directly into riparian areas.
Consider revegetating steep sloping pastures to reduce runoff or reduce stocking rates to maintain longer grass to trap sediment/nutrient run off..
Divert stormwater to make city/town folk drink what they put down drains.

There are many options but we need catchment scale cooperation to make this happen. This makes it very difficult to achieve without taking away more of peoples rights to live the way they want.

Beno

[gleeeza]

G'day Ida

I don't think it will be surprising if they do shut the river with that stink fresh in their hooters, and I agree it will be a good thing, but then again it is easy for me to say I have a sea boat!!!

I will be waiting for the speed bumps to disperse before I head out though there are plenty out there. They were out with the heavy machinery clearing lennox beach again today, I didn't see what it was but I could sure smell it.

You and Muzz had any time on the water during this crap weather, I have been away for yonks and am right out of the loop? Let me know.

Gleeeza

[onerabbit]

Hey bloke,
dont worry we have been suffering fishing withdrawals along with everybody else, for far too long now.

With all the debris & the fresh, you'd have to be a bit carefull if you had a go, we've seen big logs miles off the bar in past floods.

Muzz

[Ben D]

Good to see some people see this for what it is, NOT a "natural" disaster, its all man made. Fish kills after flooding are not natural events in these rivers, certainly not kills of this magnitude anyway. Catchment modification is the real culprit, so the solutions are not easy ones.

Below is a media release from Dr Matt Landos to ABC on this issue

Fish kill a natural event? Not likely

The only thing natural about this Richmond River kill, is that it qualifies as a monumental natural disaster. The fish will come back: less in number and smaller in size, as this ecosystem is slowly collapsing. Fish stocks are undeniably going backwards. Current management measures are inadequate.
Heavy rain preceded this most recent event- it did not cause it. The disaster only occurs, on this scale, due to human impacts, primarily agriculture. Radical changes to agriculture are needed: can we really afford to keep killing fish, just to grow sugar?
Scientists understand why the river deoxygenates: flimsy non-native vegetation is stripped off by floods; massive top soil loss from macadamia and cane farms; little buffer vegetation, to filter the inflowing water; disastrous flood plan drains which accumulate toxic sludge and where the toxic water once it ebbed back in over 100 days, it now gushes down and overwhelms the river in just a few days; and “improved” pastures, rot when submerged in the floods, compared to native’s which survive the inundation.
So was it worth spending $10 million setting up and policing marine parks, if the recruits soon to inhabit the park, are being killed in their nursery grounds? To be effective marine parks must protect the fish from the real threats- currently they do nothing of the sort. This funding could be far better directed at improving the 2nd largest fish nursery on the north coast.
The scale of the rehabilitation project is massive- but, as a community, I believe entirely achievable. Since 2001’s fish kill, NSW DPI Aquatic Habitat Protection Unit, wetland groups and local councils have improved river health in some areas. However, until the vast majority of the catchment is repaired, the fish simply wash out of the healthy stream into the toxic flow from a degraded waterway. The deadly result is same.
The State Government won’t deliver the kind of resources required to effect the repair. So we must fix our river through local means. The river is a life source to this region. It surely must be time to consider a tourist levy (bed tax) as a means of accruing the financial resources to tackle this massive problem, with an equally massive war chest of funds. Please do not slip back to the false position that nothing can be done. Get involved with the restoration.

Dr Matt Landos
Aquatic animal veterinarian
Vice President ACVSc Aquatic Animal Health Chapter

[reelemin1974]

What can we do?? What I mean by that is what can I, as a single person do to make a difference? Now I don't ask this question rhetorically, I am actually asking the question, as I, am at a loss as to what I could do to start this rehabilitation process.

[JEWIENEWIE]

I here you mate, i would like to be pointed in the right direction of what I can do to help.
Jewie

[ida]

gday glen no we havnt been out since b 4 xmas . Im hangn to get out there. Only got a couple of months b4 we head off round oz!The river is buggered for a while .Gee i have seen some big fish dead jacks-eps-flats-bream-bass-yting-u name it .Bloody shame . cheers ida

[reelemin1974]

Has anyoe seen any dead Jew?? I haven't yet

[gleeeza]

Chris,Muzz

Just looked at the weather map and that new Cyclone looks set to spoil the party for a while yet, when it rains it indeed pisses down. The spiders are having a field day in the boat and you wouldn't run in the river for all the money in the world.

Crystal clear off Byron yesterday and today, it might be time to sneak out there for a peek when this next swell dies down. I will give you a call when it does and make a day of it.!!

[ida]

gday all i was talking to a pro yesty & he has seen jew up to 40lb floating belly up!Guess we can blame progress !cheers ida

[onerabbit]

Hehehe, are we following you , or are you following us........

Indeed, Monday looked ok, a bit mean today though, was at Watego's all day , pumpin' sh!t (mean views) , a good swell on the beach for Byron still.
Might have a look next week, can make a day of it for sure.

Muzz

[gleeeza]

Hey Muzz'n Co

Got out there on thursday finally, a mate said he was holing bottom with 3/4 pound on the 32's the day before so I snuck out.

Got an early start and had to dodge a few bullets on the way through the bar but did not see anything out wide( took it nice and easy). I could smell the fresh for ages almost all the way out to the 30's before it cleaned up.

I got about 25 minutes fishing in before the sun got right up and the current blew me out of the water, spewin. Got a feed of squire and 1 monster snapper that took me 20m down on the drop, surprised the shit out of me i was float lining and it could have been anything but a red. Nice surprise!!!

Plenty there along with an amazing amount of bait but you just have to get lucky with the current. In close was shocking, it smelt like upper wilson creek and void of almost all life forms it seemed.

I heard brunz was clean enough but some of the boys said they couldn't give a bait away( could be lying). Let me know what you hear.

Gleeeza

[mattooty]

My personal opinion of why the richmond is so heavily affected by this kill compared to a system such as my local (the clarence) is that for such a small (in comparison to the clarence) system, almost 90% of its banks are lined with cane and has experienced a much larger scale of clearing, from the mouth to the headwaters. In comparison, the clarence has alot less cane directly on its banks. (only on the south side of the river and does not cover even half the length of the river). I do not blame cane farmers directly for what has happened in your region at all as i know the measures that they go to protect their waterways as i've worked on cane farms where the owners are proud fishing families! I think that it is a large combination of factors as outlined in the previous posts regarding deforestation, wetland draining etc. I would imagine that what harmful chemicals are actually still used on cane farms would be heavily diluted in such a large fresh!

[rabbi]

G'day guys,
I have been off the air for a while working and not much playing but thats about to change soon ( I hope).
I met up with Stonecold ( good to put a face to the name and he seems like a very nice bloke) on the wall just before the fish kill.

There were a few runs of 40-50cm jewies preceding the fish kill so a lot of them departed from the river and would have survived. I saw huge amounts of dead flathead, bream, whiting and blackfish floating out through the bar:( . The sharks were having a great time in large numbers at the Ballina bar so they should have done okay with the fish kill.

It will take a long time for the river to recover with reasonable size fish from this kill. I would prefer to see the pro netting cease for a while to give the fish a bit of a go but as long as there are $$$ involved I guess this will never happen.

I have been out only a few times in the allowed areas since the flood and had one monumental episode one arvo where I hooked several large jew on lures and lost everyone of them to bad luck and misfortune, I would have released them anyway as the water was not exactly clean with flood debris and who knows what in the water.:P

Went fishing off the rocks a bit further south a week ago and came up with a stack of baby snapper, Tarwhine, dart, bream and a few boots. Only kept a few nice bream and released the rest but its good to see the squire moving around.
Still a few good fish around but just might have to work a bit harder for them and practise conservation with what is left.
Cheers, Steve. 8-)

[stonecold]

G'Day Rabbi, it's always good to catch up with a fellow ausfish member, pity we didnt share a great arv of fishing on that day.

Its a bit of a coincident that this thread came back to the top as it gives me the opportunity to share some info. It may well deserve its own thread but I'll start it here first.

I was rummaging through the library at the lab this morning and found a letter written by Jon Keats who was the Acting Regional Mgr for the North Coast at the time. The letter itself was addressed to Mr Richard Staples at the Byron Environment Centre Inc and is dated 31/3/1994. The letter is in relation to the Draft Environmental Guidelines For the Assessment and Management of Coastal Land Developments in Areas of Acid Sulfate Soils.

The letter is accompanied by 4 articles from local papers one of which is from the Northern Star dated 7/3/1993 and is titled "Fisherman Angry at Acid Soil Inaction."

" Commercial fisherman are upset that repeated warnings about acid sulfate soils have gone unheeded, resulting in fish kills after the heavy rain and the threat of more."

it goes on to say

"Hundreds of dead mullet were found in a canefield drain that runs into the Tweed River near Stotts Island on Thursday and the Richmond River Delegate of the Commercial Fishermens Advisory Council, John Gallagher, of Ballina, says not enough is being done to combat or avoid a problem potentially fatal to thousands of fish in Northern Rivers and estuaries."

So what does all that mean? Well probably many things and I may well of open a whole can of worms but for me the issue is that, that was in 1994. So in 14 years of knowing this issue had the potential to be a major problem for the Northern Rivers as a whole the powers that be are still huffing and puffing about what needs to be done and at the end of the day we still have experienced 2 major fish kills in the past 7 years.