Polish authorities have offered a reward of several hundred thousand euros for the identification of the perpetrators responsible for chemical pollution of the Oder River. For the time being, the river water may not be used for irrigation in Polish and German agriculture, nor for drinking water in livestock farming. A swimming ban is also in effect.
In the border river, tens of thousands of fish have died over the past two weeks. It is already being described as an “environmental disaster,” although the exact cause is not yet known. Officials say it will take years to recover because the river has been so severely damaged.
The Oder is one of the longest rivers in Europe and has long been considered a relatively clean river, home to about forty fish species. Laboratory tests have so far found no mercury, said the Polish Minister of the Environment on Saturday. According to the authorities, the fish were likely poisoned.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki stated that “enormous amounts of chemical waste” were probably dumped into the river. He promised to do everything possible to limit the environmental destruction.
Anna Moskwa, Minister of Climate and Environment, said that analyses of river samples taken in both Poland and Germany revealed elevated salt levels. Extensive toxicological studies are still ongoing in Poland, she said. German test results so far have not shown high mercury levels.
The fish deaths are “atypical,” said Axel Vogel, Minister of the Environment of the German state of Brandenburg. He estimates that over the past days, more than one hundred thousand kilograms of dead fish have been removed from the river in both countries.
Fish die-offs are usually caused by disturbances in oxygen levels when water levels are too low. This is currently the case in Germany and Poland, amid the historic drought affecting Europe. “But for several days now, we have noticed an increase in oxygen levels, which indicates that a strange substance has entered and caused all this,” Vogel said.