For the past two days hard time fishermen have been making - excuse the pun - a killing off a fish kill in Ladyville. Starting on Saturday evening hundreds of freshwater fish turned up dead and gasping for air in a body of water next to the Bowen and Bowen Bottling plant.
The culprit appears to be algae bloom which saps up the available oxygen and leaves the fish gasping for air, actually coming up to the surface to try and breathe.
Because the body of water adjoins the Bowen and Bowen plant, that's led many observers to conclude that the fish kill is the product of some kind of plant runoff.
By the time we got there today, most of the fish kill had been cleaned up or collected. We spoke to one village man who says he filled up two crocus sacks full of fish and sold them; we also spoke to the plant manager:....
Area Resident
"You have a lot of guys catching fish because the fish was coming on the surface of the pond. But in 2 - 3 hours the fish started to die. I don't know what cause the fish to die. It has to be the factory fault."
Emaun Hyde
"How many fish would you say died out here?"
Area Resident
"Wow, thousands of little ones, big ones are in the hundreds."
Emaun Hyde
"So do you think it's a good thing that happen that the fishes die?"
Area Resident
"It's not a good thing that happens because the fishes die. But the lives ones; a lot of people took them home and eat them. But the ones that die is not a good thing."
Jules Vasquez
"Because of the proximity I guess many people are saying well it has to be related to the Bowen and Bowen operations."
Nolan Michael, Plant Manager - Bowen and Bowen Ltd.
"What happen was on Sunday afternoon we start noticing some fish in the pond having trouble breathing. Since then we have been monitoring the pond and collecting samples from it and conducting our own tests at our own laboratories. What we have found is that the total dissolved oxygen has decreased drastically during that period of time causing the fish to have problem getting enough oxygen in their bodies. It appears some sort of algae bloom that has taken place at the same time. We believe that that has consumed dissolve oxygen in the water and as result some species of the fish have died. These are all fresh water fish and quite a number of them have died due to a lack of oxygen."
Jules Vasquez
"But the allegations are that it must the result of something that your plant has dumped in there."
Nolan Michael
"Absolutely not. There has not been any chemical spill of any sort of any kind at the facility. All of our waste water runs to our state of the art waste water treatment plant adjacent to our facility. And it's processed through that waste water treatment facility. The only water from this facility that leads to that pond which is on Bowen and Bowen property as well is from storm water, rain water running off the roofs of our building so our facilities do not flood."
Jules Vasquez
"You can see how the coincidence of the proximity to a major plant which uses chemicals could be interpreted to be too much of a coincidence."
Nolan Michael
"Absolutely we can understand everyone's concern but in fact we have the only waste water treatment facility in the entire country."
Michael says his company called the Department Of The Environment. The DOE and Public Health did visit today and according to senior environment officer Jevon hulse, they conducted sampling and he should have more answers for us tomorrow. Michael said they put aerators into the water so the oxygen levels have been restored...
