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Beach in Ueckermünde on the Szczecin Lagoon: Swimming is not recommended
Photo: Jens Büttner / dpa
More than a week after the mass death of fish in the Oder became known, the focus is increasingly on the Szczecin Lagoon.
Concern is growing that contaminated water could reach the Baltic Sea.
Meanwhile, tourism in the region around the river is increasingly suffering.
There are far fewer day trips and people who have not yet planned trips on the Oder-Neisse cycle path are currently avoiding them, said Ellen Russig, managing director of the Seenland Oder-Spree tourism association.
The association also includes the particularly affected district of Märkisch-Oderland, which is around 80 kilometers in length on the Oder to the border with Poland.
"The environmental catastrophe will have long-term effects where we have to take countermeasures," Russig made clear.
Among other things, fishing tourism and canoe trips are affected.
According to them, 50 percent of tourism in the region consists of day trips and the other half are overnight stays.
Warnings against swimming in the Szczecin Lagoon
At the tourist information center in Oderbruch and Lebuser Land, the phones have not been ringing since the environmental disaster became known, as reported by director Angelika Fuchs.
Numerous people who had planned trips asked about the situation and whether it was dangerous on the Oder.
But there is also great solidarity.
»A lot, a lot of people are thinking and asking how they can help.«
Despite all the concerns, the Vorpommern-Greifswald district saw no danger for bathing in the Baltic Sea on Wednesday.
According to District Administrator Michael Sack (CDU), "the best bathing conditions continued to prevail on the Baltic Sea beaches on the island of Usedom".
The district has not been affected by the situation in the Oder so far, according to a statement.
Nevertheless, the district continues to warn against using the water of the German part of the lagoon.
Accordingly, angling, fishing and water abstraction are not recommended.
The Schwerin state government also advises against bathing there because, despite the lack of concrete information, damage to health cannot be ruled out.
The Oder flows into the Szczecin Lagoon, through which the German-Polish border runs and which is connected to the Baltic Sea off Usedom.
The estuary is widely ramified and the lagoon, at around 900 square kilometers, is about twice the size of Lake Constance.
According to official information, no effects of the Oder fish die-off have become apparent, at least in the German part of the lagoon.
The cause of the massive fish kill in the Oder is still unclear.
The environmental catastrophe worries many people living along the river in Poland and Germany.
For days, helpers have been collecting tons of fish carcasses.
According to the Polish government, no toxic substances that could have caused the fish kill have been discovered in the water samples examined.
In addition, no evidence of pesticides was found in the samples of dead fish, said Poland's Environment Minister Anna Moskwa on Tuesday in Warsaw.
The Brandenburg State Environment Agency evaluated the first laboratory results on Monday.
The website of the State Environment Agency shows that the values in the river changed dramatically from August 7th.
The oxygen content, the pH value, the turbidity and other values suddenly went up, while the amount of nitrate nitrogen dropped significantly.
Toxic species of algae identified
In their search for the cause, researchers are looking at a toxic type of algae that has developed rapidly in the river.
In the meantime, the microalgae with the name Prymnesium parvum has been identified, said the water ecologist Christian Wolter.
"The species is known to cause occasional fish kills."
It is still unclear whether the toxin of the algae is the reason for the fish deaths in the Oder.
The researcher at the Berlin Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries emphasized whether it produced toxins in this case.
He spoke of a massive algae bloom.
However, the toxin of the algae is harmless to humans.
wit/dpa