KEANSBURG -- The fish kill cleanup in Keansburg finished Thursday morning as state officials increased their estimate of dead bunker to more than a million.

Keansburg Mayor George Hoff said public works crews picked up the last of the peanut bunker that washed on shore at the Waackaack Creek with Thursday morning's high tide.

Crews plan to take all the dead fish collected since Monday to the Monmouth County landfill in Tinton Falls later in the day, Hoff said.

In all, Hoff said, crews from Keansburg picked up 5,000 pounds of fish from the creek and surrounding waterways and stored them in a 30-cubic-yard container. It will cost the borough $1,100 to dump the load at the landfill, he said.

"The beach is clean, it's open and ready for use," Hoff said. "There's no threat to the public."

Bob Considine, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said his agency increased the estimate of dead fish from hundreds of thousands to more than a million late Tuesday.

The DEP doesn't know the cause of the fish kill but surmises it may have been from low oxygen levels in the creek and surrounding waterways from the sheer number of fish - used mainly for bait - that may have been chased there by blue fish or other predators.

Crews in Keansburg and Hazlet across the creek are tending to the fish on land but are leaving in place those in the water. Hoff said the dead bunker in the creek have started to sink to the bottom, which will help reduce the smell of rotting fish.