THE state government has begun assisting with the clean-up and disposal of dead fish at Barmera’s Lake Bonney, after the toll of the fish kill passed 100,000 over the weekend.
Berri Barmera Council infrastructure services manager Dave Otto de Grancy said the Department for Primary Industries and Regions (PIRSA) would support council by helping minimise the number of bony bream, also known as pyberry, washing up on the lake’s shore.
“PIRSA has engaged a local professional fisherman to help net the dying and dead fish, bring them into shore and then our team will pick them up from him,” he said.
“We’re trying to prevent them from coming in and making a mess on the bank.
“PIRSA will foot the bill for the fisherman.
“(Environment Minister) David Speirs’ office organised to get peat soils up here so we can compost all the fish, but unfortunately so far they haven’t offered any financial assistance at all.
“They’re going to send up two loads of activated compost and that will get the fish and the stench taken care of pretty quickly apparently.
“At this point in time we don’t know what the cost of composting will be, but I would expect it to be significant.
“So far council has paid around $12,000 for the clean-up and that’s going to continue to climb because staff are still there working now.”
The fish kill event began more than three weeks ago, with PIRSA reaffirming low temperatures as the cause, after performing pathology and toxicology reports.
“PIRSA have confirmed that Lake Bonney is the only place it is happening at the moment,” Mr Otto de Grancy said.
“They also told me that, at this stage, they are not concerned that this fish kill will endanger the population, because there is a very high population of pyberry in Lake Bonney.”
Mr Otto de Grancy said council had begun using an excavator with a sieve bucket to remove dead fish from the shallow water.
Council work crews have been picking up several thousand fish each day, including 9500 last Wednesday and two truckloads on Saturday, starting near the Discovery Park at 7.30am and finishing at the Bluebird Café.
“Our staff have been working very hard to pick these fish up, pitchforking tens of thousands of fish and these guys are working in that stench all day every day and have been for three weeks,” Mr Otto de Grancy said.
“I hope the community can appreciate the amount of work that’s gone into it already by our staff.”