Fish deaths in the Oder: 25 to 50 percent of the fish died

The cause of the fish kill in the Oder is still unclear. Experts estimate that 25 to 50 percent of the fish died in the environmental catastrophe. Poland wants to pass laws to protect the river later this year.

According to estimates, 200 to 400 tons of fish were killed in the environmental disaster in the Oder. According to the Institute for Inland Fisheries, these are 25 to 50 percent of the fish in the Oder.

“When fish are dying, you don’t find every dead fish, we have to assume that two to four times as many fish died as were salvaged and disposed of,” said Uwe Brämick, the scientific director of the institute, in the environmental committee of the Brandenburg state parliament. According to him, around 50 different species live in the Oder.

Brämick described the losses of the fisheries on the Oder as drastic. “We assume that it will take two to four years before the potential of the stocks has developed again as it was before this development.” He spoke out in favor of longer-term monitoring. Normally, twelve fishing companies would catch around 50 to 60 tons of fish in the Oder, earning 80 percent of their earnings.

Multiple factors as cause?

The cause of the fish kill in the Oder is still unclear. Brandenburg’s Environment Minister Axel Vogel pointed out that increased salt levels had also been measured in previous years – without triggering such a fish kill. “This time there was also extremely low water and extremely high temperatures,” explained the Green politician. According to Vogel, the growth of the type of algae found, which is poisonous to fish, alone could not have caused the fish to die.

The Oder also has all sorts of harmful substances, emphasized the Minister for the Environment. He called for better disaster prevention through a revised warning and alarm plan for the Oder.

Illegal outflows in the Oder

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania’s Environment Minister Till Backhaus also emphasized the urgent need for action. In addition to the approved discharges into the Oder, there are 170,000 unauthorized discharges. He hopes that the federal government will enter into dialogue with the EU and Poland to abolish these conditions, said the SPD politician.

According to its own information, Poland’s water authority recently discovered 282 wastewater discharges in the Oder without a permit. It is currently being clarified from where these lines to the Oder were laid and who they belong to, said the designated new head of the water authority, Krzysztof Wos. The police had already been informed in 57 cases.

In view of the disaster, the Polish government plans to enact laws to protect the Oder this year. After that, the water of the Oder should be constantly monitored, said Deputy Infrastructure Minister Marek Grobarczyk. New sewage treatment plants are also planned to ensure that sewage does not endanger the river’s ecosystem.