Nature Done Wright

A huge thank you to the volunteers who pitched in yesterday to remove all those dead fish from the Celery Farm today. It was heavy, smelly work, far more extensive than we had imagined.

I had estimated 100 or so big fish, but after we were done several hours later, we had filled 80 contractor bags with dead fish of all sizes. Unfortunately, under the carp were all sorts of smaller fish, including sunnies, bluegills, catfish, and more. We figure roughly 1,000 fish of all sizes died in this major winter fish die-off.

The down-and-dirty crew included Gaby Schmitt, Judy McLellan, Tracey Schiess, Seth Paulanski, Spencer Dosik, Patty Finn,and Derek Patete.

Ken Weigand also took three full pickup truckloads of contractor bags filled with dead fish to the DPW facility..

Jeff Dugal brought his kayak and retrieved dozens of nasty, heavy fish that were out of reach from the shoreline.

Frank Alcaide rounded up tools and recruits, and took a bunch of pix.

Frank also did some calculations:

30 lbs of fish per contractor bag, 80 bags = More than a ton of dead fish removed from Lake Appert

You read that right. More than a ton…

The die-off was caused by a lack of dissolved oxygen in the water as a result of the lake being covered with ice, then snow these past many weeks. Compounding the disaster was the sudden drastic changes from warm to cold this past week.

I notified the state DEP of this mini-natural disaster, and they said the problem is affecting lakes and ponds statewide.

Winter fish die-offs have happened in the past in the Celery Farm, but nowhere near the magnitude of this one.

The goal we achieved today was to remove the fish before they rotted in the lake – affecting water quality and causing a horrendous stink.

Can’t thank all those great volunteers enough!