The threat of a massive fish kill is looming over Ballina as de-oxegenated water in the former Tuckean Swamp begins to make its way into the Richmond River.
With up to half a metre of water caught in the Swan Bay and New Italy areas of the former swamp, experts are worried that the cattle pastures that have been inundated will be stripping the water of its oxygen as the grasses rot.
The Richmond River was closed to commercial and recreational fishing in 2008 after similar circumstances resulted in a massive fish kill that left the coastal town of Ballina stinking of dead fish for weeks after. Prior to that, the Richmond River endured another fish kill in 2001.
Ballina shire councillor Keith Williams said a Southern Cross University study funded by the council had identified that water from the former Tuckean Swamp was the culprit.
‘The Tuckean Swamp was the largest on the east coast of Australia … it was 25,000 hectares and we’ve now converted the majority of that pasture and put in flood gates,’ Cr Williams said.
‘We’ve got plans to stop it in the future and we know what we need to do,’ he said, but added nothing was likely stop the imminent fish kill.
‘Ozfish has just received a $300,000 Fisheries grant to fund a hydrological study of the Tuckean Swamp that will look at where we can return water to .. who wants to sell their land and who wants to convert their pastures to native grasses that can survive such flood events.’
‘The council has also got its 1.5 rate variation that will raise $300,000 a year to fund a healthy waterways program.’
The Richmond River is not the only river system impacted by recent wet weather. There have been dead fish found in the Brunswick River in recent days also.
What rubbish !
This is disinformation ( or as our president Donald likes to say “alternate facts” ).
The real reason the fish and just about any other living thing, will die is due to the enormous amounts of sulphuric acid , that will leach out of the Tuckean swamp. The reason this will occur is because this swamp has produced, over thousands of years, an enormous basin of acid sulphate soil . Council can be PROUD of allowing clearing and draining “25,000 hectares and we’ve now converted the majority of that pasture and put in flood gates”.
This is a public safety disaster which allows thousands of tons of pure sulphuric acid flow into the Richmond River and combine with the toxic run off from macadamias and the rest of the poisons generated by primary industry and suburban sources, and can’t be passed off as being due to de-oxygenation caused by dead grass.
G”)
I think prefacing your comment with ‘Rubbish’ is uncalled for. U are right referring to acid s.soils, however the reasons for rate increases were mainly irrelevant and in my view, should be more focused on exactly that.. The runoff into the Richmond river.. and the dire consequences of that. This should have been addressed years ago. The outlandish number of shark attacks lately could be associated with ailing fish entering the sea from the river & catchment, (as mentioned by others) but the main priority is this, the state of the river and toxic runoff into the catchment and ocean.
Ken: give yourself an uppercut for being only half as smart as you thought you were, this kill and the two massive ones since 03, is from oxygen depletion from the blackwater. That’s why the fish are gulping at the surface and the crabs and prawns are trying to crawl out. They can’t breathe. Classic dissolved oxygen crash and probably from DO crash hotspots Bungawalbyn and Rocky Mouth – where they got 480mm in a day a week ago.
You want acid scalds? You’ll hafta wait until the flood level drops and the concentrated pH<4 leaches out of the drains. and what fish are left have their slime layer burnt off & get red spot ulcers.
That's when the Tuckean really does its dirty work.