The cause of fish deaths in the Hunter River at Mount Thorley remains under investigation by the NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA).
Teams have been taking water samples and following up leads with the community on a daily basis since they were alerted to the dead fish on Friday, March 20, the agency says.
Reports they had received suggested that hundreds of dead fish were seen along a two-kilometre stretch of the river.
NSW EPA Director Operations David Gathercole says “significant” resources have been devoted to the investigation; water samples are being processed by a laboratory as a matter of high priority.
“Yesterday our officers saw live fish, including juvenile fish fry, swimming in the river and fish that appear to have died last week,” Gathercole says today.
“This indicates that whatever caused the deaths may well have passed.”
INVESTIGATING FISH DEATHS
He says there “can be many reasons” for the deaths such as low dissolved oxygen or pollution or pesticide spills and says that industrial, farm and mining run-offs feed into the river at Mount Thorley.
“We are contacting any licensed facilities in the area that have known discharge points into the river to ensure they are operating normally and to determine if a pollution incident has occurred,” Gathercole said yesterday.
“Our investigations are continuing into all possibilities,” he says today.
“We have prioritised water quality testing and will let the community and industry know when water quality is within normal limits,” he says.
“We acknowledge the community’s concern about this issue and appreciate the help they have provided us.
“We are following up information from the community. If anyone has evidence they would like to share, please send it to our Environment Line via info@epa.nsw.gov.au.”
As a precaution, the EPA recommends anyone swimming in the river follows standard NSW Health advice not to drink any untreated water.
For downstream users who don’t need to extract water from the river, they should wait for EPA confirmation that the water quality is normal.
The agency is meeting with representatives from state agencies, Singleton Council and other stakeholders on a government response.
Water sample analysis results should be available within a week while fish sample results could take up to three weeks, the EPA says.
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