Greek authorities probe death of 800 tonnes of farmed fish

Yahoo News 29 Feb 08;

Authorities in western Greece are investigating the death of around 800 tonnes of farmed fish in a protected wetlands from an apparent lack of oxygen, an official said Friday.

"This is an unprecedented incident in Greece and probably in the whole Mediterranean basin," said Sotiris Saxamis, deputy prefect of Aetoloakarnania province.

"We're still looking into what happened," he told AFP. "The tests showed the fish died from lack of oxygen but there was no sign of toxic contamination."

The fish died on February 18 at three fish farms in the Gulf of Amvrakikos during a period of heavy snowfall around the country.

Fisheries on the other side of the gulf were unaffected.

A statement from the prefecture said that between 600 and 900 tonnes of fish had died, possibly from a disturbance in the water's temperature and salinity levels.

"There was an influx of sweet water from one of the gulf's tributary rivers," Saxamis said. "This may have been caused by melting snow or perhaps too much water was released from the Arachthos dam four kilometres upstream."

Local authorities now face a race against time to remove the dead fish before decomposition starts to infect the surrounding waters.

"We got the largest net we could find but there are still problems with removing all this fish from a depth of up to 19 metres (50 feet)," Saxamis said.

"We still have to remove around 300 tonnes, I expect the operation to continue until Sunday."

The gulf is a wetlands listed on the international Ramsar convention that aims to protect sensitive habitats from environmental disasters.

Ecologists and local citizen groups have protested that the fish farms constitute a threat to the gulf's marine environment and should be removed.

Around 80,000 people live in the area in 17 municipalities, many of whom dump untreated sewage into the gulf, Saxamis said.