Warwick fish kill

[bugman]

Caveman has been talking about this for a while.

He's the official verdict.

ABC News Toowoomba 12/3/2003

Recent storms on the Southern Downs, caused a flush of organic matter into the Condamine River ... which is being blamed for a significant fish kill at Warwick.

More than 300 fish, mostly European Carp died between the Junabee Road Bridge and Alice Street Weir at Warwick, 10 days ago.

After extensive testing, the Environmental Protection Agency says the fish were NOT contaminated by herbicide or pesticide ... and that it's likely, the fish died from low oxygen levels, caused by the organic matter and increased sediment in the river.

The EPA has lifted its warning about eating fish taken from the area .. declaring it a safe zone.

An EPA spokesman says no other animals have been affected.
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What do you think caveman

Bugman

[caveman]

:o i cant realy answer that on this site as it is accessable to the younger generation ;) ;) ;)
but how come the fish only died in that area and not further up or down the river can any one who knows about this stuff give an idears here

[The_Walrus]

The only real solution is testing by an independent organisation.

In my mind, I would not trust any report for government bodies or government funding dependent bodies.

Luc

[caveman]

in an earlyer post i said a very similer
thing its the only way to do it and then it pays to get 2 or 3 of them i supose im just a suspicious type of person when it come to these sort of things

[Steve_Ooi]

One of the biggest problem is that human interaction with the environmental land use around river has greatly accelerated eutrophication , although it is a natural process, #the land use has aged our river in super quick time ,and many native species have not been able to cope.
Land clearance and agricultural practices #have cause huge amount of sediment to run off into our #rivers clogging up systems filling deep holes and making very shallow running bodies of water, water temps rise and therefore oxygen levels drop subsequently #and when faced with drought conditions( which is regularly) #river are complete dry, and holes that contain fish run the risk that the first rains will wash huge amounts of organic materials into the systems , bio-organism feed off the organic material and use huge quantities of oxygen in their metabolism to do so. So you see a further drop of oxygen levels and fish die.
Run off from fertilisers accelerate the problem even further, fertilisers are pumped full of nitrates and #phosphates , plant matter loves the stuff and it essential for it growth , that’s all good for farmers and their tomatoes and potatoes, but algae loves it too.
#On a rough ratio algae #needs 106 parts of carbon to 16 part nitrogen to one part phosphorus , these are essential items needed for algae growth. While the nitrogen and carbon can be obtained in large levels naturally, only small quantities of phosphorus is available to them, so by limiting the amount of phosphorus available we can control the growth rate, down side is that only a small part of phosphorus needs to enter the system to accelerate algae growth and create blooms. Have a look at those golf course lakes..
Problem is that big bloom upset the system and soon you end up with masses of decaying algae and the problem of low oxygen levels from bio-organisms devouring organic material. #

If there was one word that comes to mind when thinking about this on going problem it is “ACCOUNTABILTY”..
When someone becomes accountable for their action they start to consider and think about things before making decisions , making them responsible for their actions .
But until more people and councils are held accountable for their action very little will change.
More accountability is what I call for. #


Steve Ooi # #

[Jewmaster]

MAy not realte but I watched a doco on a early attempt to colonise america and most of them died, one theory is that the settlers where using the river to dump there waste, but the tidal flow in the river never removed the waste it just moved up and down the same length of river as the tide went in and out, So it was getting worse and worse and they all got nasty problems.

I don;t live in the area, and i don't know if the river is ridal, but if it is, It may be possible that the Oxygen deplited water could have moved back and forth over the one area thus killing fish in this area only and not all over the river. It is also possible that local pollution led to the lack of oxygen and worsened the situation. With further rain the flow of the river dispersed the fowl water.

Don;t bag me out, Its just an idea. But please give feedback.

[klyons]

Jewmaster
It's actualy impossible to get any further from tidal influence in Australia than the head of the Condamine.
Caveman
I would have thought the reason the fish kill was restricted mainly to the Junabee Rd/Alice St weir section was this was probably the only piece of the river within 10ks with enough water to support life.Upstream and downstream there would be a few deep holes and a lot of dry river bed.

Kev

[caveman]

klyons by the sounds of it you know the area, but i think i've gone on about this long enough as i may end up making enemies within our mist wich would be more harmful than any fish kill as we all need to stick together as fishos :-X :-X