Apparent mass fish kill in Menindee Lakes system

16 October 2019

ANOTHER mass fish kill event has been spotted in far western NSW, nine months after millions of fish were found dead on the nearby banks of the Darling River.

Aerial footage released by the ABC appeared to show thousands of dead fish at Lake Pamamaroo, near Broken Hill.

The NSW DPI is yet to confirm the new kill, but said the remote location would make verifying the mass kill extremely difficult.

Professor Richard Kingsford, director of the Centre for Ecosystem Science at the University of NSW, told the ABC he doubted the footage showed the current state of the lake.

"We flew across Lake Pamamaroo and we didn't see any water along the lake," Kingsford said.

"We didn't fly across all of it, but it looked like it had been dry for quite a while." He said

Professor Kingsford said he did not see dead fish in the area.

Darry Clifton from the Darling River Action Group was not surprised by another apparent fish kill.

"The fish are trapped, they've got nowhere to go, there's nowhere for the fish to follow the old creeks back to the actual outlet for the river." Clifton told the ABC.

"To see this pristine area go down the tubes, it's just beyond belief. It's a crying shame," Clifton said.

The federal water minister David Littleproud told ABC's RN Breakfast he was concerned.

"This isn't the first of these fish death events, in fact there's been over 600 in NSW alone in the last 30 years," Littleproud said.

Mr Littleproud admitted there was little he could do to prevent mass kills this summer when weather predictions did not include significant rainfall.

John Williams - an expert in water and river management - said too much water had been diverted from the river system and described the federal government's response as inadequate.

"We're in a desperate situation…the best we can do is a Band-Aid at the moment," Williams told the ABC.

Source: ABC