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Dead fish in Lebus, Brandenburg: “Then early warning levels didn’t work for us either”
Photo:
Patrick Pleul / dpa
In connection with the crisis management on the Oder, the pressure on the authorities and the government is increasing.
"If it turns out that the Brandenburg environmental agency already registered at the beginning of August that the Oder water is changing significantly, we must also speak of a German information failure," said the environmental policy spokesman for the left-wing faction in the Brandenburg state parliament, Thomas Domres, the SPIEGEL.
"Then our early warning levels failed too."
The background to this is that increasing salt concentrations were measured at a measuring station in Frankfurt an der Oder as early as August 1st.
As early as August 5th, the conductivity was almost twice as high as normal, on August 6th the diagram on the website of the Brandenburg State Office for the Environment (LfU) could no longer show the values because they were too high.
Experts say these are signs that industrial waste may have been dumped into the river.
When asked, the Federal Ministry for the Environment also stated that it was known that certain values "changed noticeably" even before the fish died.
But at the LfU, the values were only observed and no further action was taken.
Only when the first dead fish were reported by anglers, boatmen and local residents on August 9th did the authorities take action.
Left-wing politician Domres said he expects "clear statements on the allegations in the room" from Environment Minister Axel Vogel (Greens) and the LfU at a special meeting of the Environment Committee next week.
The Union faction in the Bundestag also expects “a full explanation as soon as possible”.
"If mistakes have been made, they must be cleared up completely and as quickly as possible in order to be able to react better to such catastrophes in the future," Astrid Damerow, who represents the CDU/CSU on the environment committee, told SPIEGEL.
special session requested
It is still too early to draw any conclusions, but many questions remain unanswered.
'How could so much time go by without an alarm going off?
Was there any misconduct or negligence on the part of the German or Polish authorities?” Damerow asked.
A special meeting of the committee has been requested for the coming week.
The mayor of Frankfurt an der Oder, René Wilke (left), had already criticized the lack of cooperation between the federal, state and local governments on Wednesday.
"Everyone has declared that they are not responsible," Wilke told SPIEGEL.
Criticism of the crisis management also comes from the Brandenburg State Farmers' Association.
"Volunteers, some of whom have inadequate protective equipment, provide on-site support without knowing the causes of the fish kill and the associated dangers," said association president Henrik Wendorff.
The slow reconnaissance is all the more astonishing since a measuring and reporting system has been installed on the Oder, in which automated sampling regularly checks the condition of the Oder.
cause unclear
At the beginning of August, masses of dead fish washed up on the banks along the Oder.
It is one of the greatest environmental disasters in a long time.
Volunteers have already collected around 37 tons of fish carcasses in Germany by the middle of the week.
More animals are likely to be added in the coming days because the collection campaigns are ongoing.
The fish kill had already begun in Poland at the end of July.
The cause is so far unclear.
It is believed that large amounts of saline water were discharged into the Oder, either intentionally or as a result of an accident.
A natural cause for the mass deaths is considered extremely unlikely.
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