The authorities are offering a bounty to find the author of this serious pollution, which poisoned the fish with large quantities of chemical waste.
Thousands of fish float lifeless on the Oder River, which flows through Germany and Poland, raising fears of a “disasterfor the environment while the local population is called upon to stay away from these waters. These shoals of fish flocking, bellies in the air, to the shores near the town of Schwedt in eastern Germany, were probably carried by the current from Poland where the first cases were reported by locals and fishermen from 28 July.
German officials, taken by surprise by their massive arrival, accused the Polish authorities of failing to inform them. In Poland, too, the right-wing populist government is coming under fire for not reacting sooner. Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki tried to justify himself on Friday: “initially everyone thought it was just a local problem“, he said on his weekly podcast.
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Polish police on Saturday offered a reward of 210,000 euros to find the author of serious pollution of the Oder river which flows at the Polish-German border, where tons of dead fish have been fished out for several days.
“The scale of pollution is very large, large enough to say that the Oder will need whole years to return to its natural state“, recognized the Polish Prime Minister. “Huge quantities of chemical waste were probably dumped in the river, with full awareness of the risk and its consequences“, he judged. German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke demanded an exhaustive investigation to determine the causes of this “environmental disaster“.
“deeply shocked»
Standing at the water’s edge, Michel Tautenhahn, deputy head of the Lower Oder Valley National Park, looks in dismay in the direction of the river, where the German-Polish border passes. “We are on the German side. We have dead fish everywhere“, he told AFP. “I am deeply shocked… I have the impression of seeing decades of work ruined (…) Water is our lifehe says adding that a host of other aquatic animals such as mussels have also succumbed.
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The fish, “it’s just the tip of the iceberg“, he assures. The Oder has been considered a relatively clean river for many years, supporting around 40 species of fish. Many fish – some a few centimeters long, others almost 40 cm – are now floating lifelessly on the river. Sometimes, we see some of them turn around with difficulty to try to swim.
Dead “atypical»
Their death isatypical,” explains Axel Vogel, Minister of the Environment of the Land of Brandenburg, judging that “tonsof fish have probably already perished. Fish kills are often caused by the distortion of oxygen levels when the water level is too low, he explains. “But we have noticed an increase in the oxygen level for several days, which indicates that a foreign substance has been introduced and caused all this“, according to him.
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The opposition, local authorities and environmental organizations have demanded explanations from the government, some even demanding the resignation of officials within the Ministry of Climate, including a deputy minister who was still encouraging people to go swimming in the water on Thursday. Or. “It looks like Chernobyl, when after the disaster Soviet power sent people to take part in the May Day parade“, was offended Daniel Petrykiewicz, ecological activist at the commercial channel TVN24.
On the banks of the Oder in Germany, Mr. Tautenhahn worries about the future. “If it’s mercury, it’s gonna stay there for a long time“, he says, recalling that this metal does not disintegrate and could remain for many years in the sediments.
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