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Tens of thousands of dead fish stink up Lake Erie shore
Tens of thousands of dead fish have washed up on a 25-mile stretch of Lake Erie's northern shore, and Ontario environmental officials say they could be victims of a natural phenomenon called a lake inversion.
The inversion brings cold water, which has lower oxygen levels, to the lake's surface and fish suffocate.
"Essentially it's a rolling over of the lake," Ontario Ministry of the Environment spokeswoman Kate Jordan told The Chatham Daily News. "Something - whether it be a storm, or cooler temperatures at night, or strong winds - triggers a temperature change in the lake."
Jordan said it was windy and choppy on the lake Friday night, according to a report in The Windsor Star. The fish kill was reported Saturday.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said the central basin of Lake Erie, between Cleveland on the south and Chatham, Ontario, on the north is particularly susceptible to oxygen deprivation, with the danger peaking in late August and mid-September.
Others suspect a sewage spill may have something to do with the fish kill.
David Colby, chief medical officer of the Chatham-Kent district where dead fish litter the beaches, told The Windsor Star that residents reported a strong sewage smell the night before the fish washed ashore.
“All kinds of people were woken out of a sound sleep by a stench and it was like a septic tank was backing up,” The Windsor Star quoted Colby as saying.
But Jordan said tests of lake water taken Saturday showed no signs of what might have killed the fish. The water was tested for oxygen, PH levels, conductivity and temperature, she said.
"The ministry did not observe any evidence of a spill or pollution and water quality measurements done did not show anything unusual," Jordan told CNN.
The investigation was continuing, she said.
The dead fish included carp, sheepshead, perch, catfish and suckers, the Daily News reported, and Colby said most were of good size.
"I haven't seen anything like this in quite some time," the Daily News quoted him as saying. "The interesting thing is that most of the fish are sizable. There are very few little ones."
Jordan told the Toronto Star the cleanup of the fish has yet to begin.
“We are having discussions with Environment Canada, the health unit and natural resources about that now,” the Toronto Star quoted her as saying.
Meanwhile, residents said the smell of rotting fish is overpowering.
"I had family here (on Monday) and I didn't allow them to take the dog or the children down to the beach," Chatham-Kent resident Patricia Pook told CNN affiliate CBC News. "I knew it was bad, but the smell is just overwhelming. It would make you sick to your stomach."
This same thing happened by Headlands Beach near Mentor, Oh a little over a month ago. It was the strangest thing seeing all those dead fish..
They keep making excuses for thousands of dead fish washing up on shores and birds falling from the air dead. When are we going to hear the real story of what's going on?
Yeah, how dare they try to use science to explain what happened!
Mayan Apocalypse
It's not the fish creating that smell. A gynecologist just set up his practice there a few days ago.
Such a waste.
In the good old days in Cleveland we'd just throw a match in the river for a great fish fry...
Lol!
I saw that one time on the Little Calumet River growing up...
Some of you are missing the point of all of this – the beach was VERY busy all weekend because of the long weekend and even after MANY people asked if that water was okay for swimming, Rondeau Park staff said yes. The smell was bad and I was not confident to allow my children in the water (esp. on Sunday). People need to figure out what happened and shouldn't have left cottagers and campers in the dark all weekend – if they noticed a problem they should have closed the beach.
thanks for first hand report
Let my people go!
Sorry, we're waiting for the frog rain. Then you may go.
Aren't the Dems the party which preaches tolerance and to never prejudge people? Yet you've both managed to lump all conservatives together as not being clever or bright. Not practicing what you preach, I'd say.
I suppose there is an occasional conservative of passable intelligence, but I would say the exception proves the rule. If it's a middle class conservative, nah, he's just not very bright.
Conservatives? I thought they were talking about Teabaggers. They're even dumber than conservatives.
Odd....
Cold water inherently holds more oxygen in it than warm water. Granted the lower water doesn't mix as much, but I am not sure this is in fact a plausible explanation. Hypoxia events usually occur when the water is heated and less dissolved oxygen is in the water.
in lakes of sufficient depth, water below the thermocline is very low in oxygen content, and contains no fish, for that reason. Inversion, or turnover, usually occurs when the top layer of water cools fairly rapidly, gaining density, and plunges toward the bottom, forcing the oxygen poor water below the thermocline toward the top.
People of the United States of America,
Whales stranding themselves in Scottland and now 10s of thousands of dead fish washing up on Lake Erie.Large Earthquakes occurring around the world,I am telling you,the Earths Magnetic Field may be shifting,Some Government agency better check this out!
some are of the opinion the U.S. Navies' low frequency submarine communication system interferes with the whales.
Oh come on. I grew up on the shores of Lake Erie in a little town west of Cleveland. This often happened in the Summer. That was 40 years ago. This is nothing new,
They could collect the fish and take em to the bears out west.
Better yet give them to the soup kitchens for the poor to eat. Democrats been eat'n fried chicken & talk'n smack for a long time a good ol fish dinner is hard to beat.
make great fertilizer at the least
Sorry to hear this occurred–but at least it resulted from a natural phenomenon (lake inversion is well-known.) When I was a kid living in Michigan during the 1960s, Lake Erie was declared "dead" due to industrial pollution, i.e. no fish at all. Chemicals floating on the surface was known to catch on fire from time to time.
Thanks to the Federal govt's EPA rules, Lake Erie and other natural resources have been cleaned. Let's hope the funds for keeping such federal oversight remains available....
You obviously have never seen the Michigan State booklet for food safety of fish which lists advisories for each fish species according to size at nearly every fishing location in the state. All the fish there are contaminated.
Reblogged this on Living and Lovin.
All the explanations smell fishy to me..
I'm thinking sewage.vs inversion
A lake inversion where water at the surface becomes cooler and draws up the colder and deeper waters IN A LAKE that is sludge and waste laced at the bottom WILL bring the smell of that bottom dwelling swill of decomposing waste.
When the bottom water is pulled up it brings the SMELL so although the cooler water caused the fish kill the practice of humans tossing waste into the lake over centuries supply the SMELL.