Fish kill in Orbetello.What happens and why anoxia is now a chronic problem

Rising temperatures and fertilizer spills favor the growth of algae, which in turn becomes food for bacteria, suffocating fish

Serious environmental problems continue in the Orbetello Lagoon area.For days the body of water has been giving off rotting odors that creep into the alleys of the villages that overlook it.Bathers are horrified at the sight of thousands and thousands of fish that continue to surface, dead, due to the lack of oxygen in the brackish water.«All harvesting activities resumed early this morning.During the night, many carcasses arrived at the cleaner, collected and being disposed of.In the town the companies have been working since early morning to dispose of the arriving carcasses.Currently the most difficult situation concerns the stretch from Ansedonia to after the Palazzetto along the bank", announced the mayor of the town in the province of Grosseto on Facebook, when 100 quintals of fish have already been collected in the last week.In the meantime, the dense, brown water drains from the lagoon and flows into the Tyrrhenian Sea, making the beaches inhospitable, where there are levels of Escherichia Coli and intestinal enterococci that prevent bathing.Feniglia beach, in the protected natural area of ​​the same name, was particularly affected.

Orbetello, the second fish kill in ten years

Now civil protection is working tirelessly to "recover every last specimen".But already at the beginning of the month the Ansedonia defense association - this is the name of one of the settlements in the Orbetello area on the outskirts of the lagoon - had sent a complaint to the Grosseto prosecutor's office asking the judicial authority to investigate the causes of the microbiological pollution which "damages the marine habitat and puts bathing and the health of swimmers as well as tourism at risk."However, the problem is known, frequent and well documented.Suffice it to say that this is the second major massacre of fish fauna in the last ten years in which experts and interested parties, such as the vice-president of Fedagripesca Toscana Andrea Bartoli, quoted by Today, mindful of the similar event in 2015, define a condition that is now "chronic".

Orbetello, the reason for the fish massacre

The waters of the lagoon, having few outlets to the open sea, tend to stagnate more than those of the Mediterranean.In this context, we insert - literally - quintals of fertilizers which end up in the lagoon transported by the waterways that cross the cultivated areas.Fertilizers, combined with the prolonged high temperatures favored by climate change, facilitate the growth of algae, which in turn die, becoming food for the bacteria that consume the oxygen in the water, bringing it to a state of anoxia.Thus, the fish can no longer breathe, and die en masse.For this reason, citizens' associations continue to ask the institutions to do something.This is unlikely to happen without a structured plan, and if, as he reports the Day, the funds available to the Municipality of Orbetello amount to just one million euros per year.