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Researchers suspect that there could still be hundreds of tons of dead fish in the Oder.
Photo: JAKUB STEZYCKI / REUTERS
The mood is good when the Environment Committee of the Brandenburg State Parliament meets unscheduled on Tuesday afternoon.
The deputies greet each other happily, many have not seen each other since the start of the summer break.
The reason for the appointment is one of the largest fish kills in the history of the Federal Republic, 113 tons of dead fish were found in Brandenburg from the Oder, 80 tons of which are still waiting to be burned as hazardous waste.
Despite this catastrophe, the mood did not change during the entire session - the state government seems to be satisfied with how the fish kill in Brandenburg was combated.
And everything that is still unknown does not seem to particularly depress the responsible environment minister, Axel Vogel (Greens).
A member of parliament asks: When will we know what caused the fish kill?
"I can't give the answer, and I can't say when it will be known and whether it will ever be known." There is now a commission that is dealing with the investigation.
A deputy wants to know: how is it that the salinity of the Oder has increased so much?
"I can't answer the question of where the salt comes from, the salt comes from Poland."
Crucial information is missing
The responsible counties removed the carcasses on their own, mostly thanks to volunteers.
The mayor of Frankfurt had his firefighters sell out fishing shops in the city and said a few days later that everyone in the country had declared themselves not responsible.
He felt alone.
The minister sees it this way: "It worked," he says, when it comes to the fact that the counties acted independently.
What didn't work: The Polish side didn't let you know in time.
But that was it.
more on the subject
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Fish deaths in the Oder: Poland speaks of false information from Germany
The fact that the authorities in Brandenburg also reacted hesitantly is only briefly discussed in the committee.
The head of the State Environment Agency, Dirk Ilgenstein, counters the criticism that the agency has not reacted to increased measured values for salinity, with the comment that these values have fluctuated greatly for years.
As evidence, he has a printout distributed on which the electrical conductivity of the water has been traced since the beginning of 2020.
The higher the conductivity, the more salt there is in the water.
But the graph ends in July 2022. August, when the values rose sharply, is missing.
Ilgenstein calls the fact that the conductivity rose sharply from August 5th, a few days later the pH value and chlorophyll content rose and the nitrate value fell “noticeable”.
But it was not so noticeable that a fish kill could have been derived from it.
A phone call to Poland, where dead fish had been hauling out of the Oder for days, would have sufficed.
Apparently no one did it in office.
Only when dead fish were sighted on the river on August 9 did action begin.
At this meeting, the clearest words come from those who bear no political responsibility: the scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries Berlin (IGB).
“You know that scientists don't like to commit themselves,” says biologist Jan Köhler, “but in this case I'll do it.
It was the alga, nothing else.' The alga he means is the golden alga.
It secretes a poison that destroys the gills of fish.
According to the researchers, it multiplied exponentially and poisoned the water so badly that fish, mussels and snails died.
In the past few days, this theory had been substantiated more and more.
"It can happen again at any time."
The researchers suspect that between 25 and 60 percent of the fish in the Oder could have died.
There could still be several hundred tons of fish carcasses in the Oder.
It could take years for the Oder to regenerate.
And: According to the researchers, the alga was only able to thrive because it found the best conditions: a high water temperature, low water, high nutrient values in the water, probably because something had been fed into the water.
And: »It can happen again at any time, the algae are everywhere and can be spread by wind and waterfowl«.
more on the subject
Environmental disaster in the Oder: Poland's failure - Germany's bungling
Federal Environment Minister on the Oder disaster: How can it be that Germany was informed so late, Ms. Lemke? A SPIEGEL interview by Susanne Beyer and Serafin Reiber
Dead fish in the Oder: First came the salt, then came the perhaps deadly algaeBy Julia Merlot
The researchers are calling for the Oder to be made more resilient to climate change - for example, lost floodplains should be revitalized as flood protection areas, the river brine raised, and no further barrages built.
Even now the pressure on the river is high – the oxygen content of the Oder is very low, which is stressful for the fish that are still alive.
Therefore, all work on the Oder would have to be stopped immediately to take the pressure off.
In Poland, the Oder is currently being dredged to make it navigable.
Towards the end of the meeting, there was again clear criticism of the state government: "There was a lot of clapping for the volunteers here," says an invited veterinarian, who herself inspected the carcasses on the Oder.
'They weren't volunteers.
Nobody does this work voluntarily.
That was a call for help because you didn't know how else to get rid of the carcasses," she says.
You can feel the anger in her voice.
The minister and the deputies take note of her outburst.
Then the next one comes along.
