Africa-Press – Zimbabwe. By Felix Matasva – THE Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has dismissed poison as the cause of the death of huge numbers of fish at Fern Valley Day in Mutare recently.
The agency said test results had allayed fears the fish could have been poisoned by illegal fishers.
On September 5 , in a suspected case of water poisoning by local fish mongers, Fern Valley residents were shocked after discovering a school of dead fish floating all over the lake.
Speaking Thursday to NewZimbabwe.com , EMA’s Manicaland Education and Publicity Officer, Alice Rutsvara, confirmed that water at Fern Valley Dam is environmentally safe.
“We have concluded the water sample analysis from Fern Valley dam following the decimation of fish. The sample analysis showed that the water is environmentally safe. We looked at chemical properties that were suspected to have caused death of fish and results noted that PH from water is within the Blueband category which implies that it is safe, Rutsvara said.
“The samples showed that there was no possibility of Sulphur Compound which contribute to toxicity within within the water,” she said, adding: “The total dissolved solids that were looked at showed no sign of being harmful to fish. Whenever chemicals are disolved in water one may expect to come across remnants suspending on the water, but results revealed no sign of chemicals.”
“We looked at electronic conductivity which was lying also on blue band category. It was imperative to look at dissolved oxygen since fish deaths are normally related to the amount of oxygen within the water. Normally chemicals that are used by fish mongers are oxygen scavenging or toxic chemicals which highly affect the quantity and quality of disolved oxygen within the water. In this case we discovered that there was sufficient oxygen for fish to survive,” Rutsvara said.
She attributed the massive decimation of marine life at Fern Valley Dam to extreme weather conditions.
“We can conclude that it was not a poison or any chemical that was put in the water. We have concluded that it was a case of an environmental scenario where there was water turnover or a rapid change in water temperature. It happened occasionally in common water bodies such as Chivero and Mapembe Dam. This can also be contributed by fishing community structure or otherwise presence of various bacteria,” she said.
