Environment Minister: Or it will only recover in several years

Created: 08/12/2022, 14:29

Concerned residents from the Oderbruch are standing on a groyne of the German-Polish border river Oder.

© Patrick Pleul/dpa

According to estimates by Brandenburg's Environment Minister Axel Vogel, the consequences of the massive fish kill in the Oder will be felt for years to come.

"For the Oder as an ecologically valuable body of water, this is a blow from which it will probably not recover for several years," said the Green politician on Friday in Schwedt during a visit to the region.

Schwedt - The fish stocks would have to be slowly rebuilt.

"Even if the zooplankton, i.e. the small creatures in the Oder, are damaged - and this is to be expected - it will take a long time before sufficient food for the fish can be found in the Oder again." A serious one Vogel, on the other hand, does not see any danger to the Baltic Sea from toxic substances that could get there via the river: “First of all, I would assume that whatever is in the Oder at the moment is diluted to such an extent that there is none in the Baltic Sea will do more damage.”

However, there are still no reliable findings on this: "Our problem is that we are still groping in the dark, that we do not know which substances were actually introduced into the Oder," said Vogel.

"We have indications from the Polish side that around July 28 near Oppeln, i.e. near Wroclaw, substances got into the Oder, which caused a fish kill there that rolled down the Oder to us."

However, there is no clear information about which substances these are exactly.

"And we also have no knowledge of the extent to which these substances accumulate in the fish and may have led to these fish being poisonous." This could then also affect other animals, such as storks or birds of prey, if they were to eat such fish .

"At the moment we don't know whether these fish should be declared as hazardous waste," Vogel said.

“Depending on this, different disposal methods have to be chosen.

But it is absolutely clear that disposal has to take place.” For this, personnel and, for example, appropriate containers for removing the dead fish would have to be made available.

dpa