2023-03-19
Cate Faehrmann, Greens MP and water spokesperson, is calling on the NSW and Federal Governments to take emergency action to remove the millions of dead fish from the river before they decompose and cause an ecological disaster.
Millions of fish have died and are currently choking the lower Darling-Baake river near Menindee, this situation is more severe than any of the large scale fish kill events that have occurred in recent times and represents an existential threat to the river’s health and community water security.
“This is categorically a catastrophe, regardless of whether this is a consequence of receding floods or water mismanagement, the NSW and Federal Governments should be acting now to clean up the millions of rotting fish which are spanning kilometres of the river,” said Cate Faehrmann
“We are experiencing a natural disaster in the Darling-Baaka river right now and government departments and agencies are ducking responsibility and writing this off as a natural event - that is utter nonsense and is doing nothing to help.
“Right now, every natural aspect of the river and the communities that rely on it for water are threatened with cascading collapse and these millions of fish that are rotting away are a harmful tragedy and will further degrade the system and quality of the water.
“The NSW and Federal Governments should be mobilising their considerable resources to avert the ecosystem harm that this fish kill will lead to. The State Emergency Service, the Army Reserve - whatever it takes to clean the Darling-Baaka needs to be happening right now. To suggest the scale is too difficult to deal with is unacceptable. We must get to work, like we would in any state emergency.
“While Dominic Perrottet is making Tik Toks in Sydney, the Murray Darling Basin is in a crisis of unprecedented proportions. Both levels of Government need to pull their fingers out and get these millions of dead fish out of the river before we are facing a compounding disaster that will reverberate along the entire river," said Cate Faehrmann
Contact: Jacob Miller - 0428 837 292