TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (WCTV) – Some environmentalists are concerned after they say hundreds of fish in Lake Munson suddenly died during the Fourth of July weekend, raising questions as to what happened.
“What I saw at the outfall area were a bunch of dead fish,” Terry Ryan said. He is the president of the Tallahassee Region Environmental Group (TREG). “A bunch of them. Hundreds and hundreds of them and so we became very concerned.”
He says they filed a report with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and he began collecting water samples to help determine what could’ve caused the fish kill.
“It’s a wide range of things we need to consider,” Ryan said.
Leon County Public Works Director Brent Pell said in a statement the county takes each report about Lake Munson seriously. The statement also pointed out that FWC is “arranging for staff to investigate whether the cause was natural environmental conditions, such as low oxygen levels during prolonged high heat, or another factor.”
Ryan said his organization gathered their own water samples Tuesday morning.
“Our first initial thought was maybe the oxygen in the lake was not enough and it harmed the existence of, especially, the small fish,” Ryan said. However, he said their preliminary findings indicate the oxygen levels may be okay.
TREG has been heavily involved in the following and water testing of Lake Munson during the past few years, as they allege harmful chemicals are trapped at the bottom, threatening wildlife and water quality for residents.
“Unfortunately, the experience we’ve had and we’ve seen over the last several years and decades with Lake Munson is that it is a very highly contaminated lake.”
He said the water testing of the samples gathered Tuesday should be complete within 48 hours to help determine what may have caused the fish to die.
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