What one Monmouth County official estimated as over a million dead bunker fish washed up on the Raritan Bay’s shores in Keyport last week.
SAM SNYDER The waters near Brown’s Point Marina in Keyport were thick with the carcasses of rotting fish last week. Theories are varied as to why over 1 million bunker fish washed onto the Keyport shore. The incident occurred on Sept. 11, and while local officials are still divided over the cause of the large fish kill, several theories have emerged, including one that a lack of oxygen is causing the bunker fish to suffocate themselves.
On Friday, Congressman Frank Pallone called on the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to investigate the matter, asking the agency “to conduct an intensive monitoring and testing regimen in the Raritan Bay to track water quality.”
“It would be inappropriate to take a business as-usual attitude towards these kills,” Pallone wrote in a letter to Alan Steinberg, an EPA administrator in New York City. “During the summer season, the New Jersey Shore has seen multiple fish kills, algae blooms, the biggest garbage wash-up in 10 years and a sewage leak that led to beach advisories and the closure of beaches. The EPA must take action in order to pinpoint these problems and resolve these issues.”
On Monday, Heather Lasher Todd, the press secretary in Pallone’s Washington, D.C., office, said the congressman expects a reply from the EPA by late this week or early next week.
This is the second time in less than 90 days that Keyport’s shore has been lined with dead fish. In June, hundreds of bunker washed onto the borough’s shore. At that time, the Monmouth County Health Department tested the water for dissolved oxygen levels. The agency tested again after last week’s kill.
On Monday, Bill Simmons, environmental health coordinator for the Monmouth County Health Department, estimated the number of dead fish to be “in the millions.”
“We did some dissolved oxygen [DO] testing,” Simmons said. “We’ve had a number of kills this summer and this one last week was 4.4 to 4.7. … [A reading of] 4.0 is the beginning of poor water quality, 4.0 is the beginning of concern. The bunker begin dying at 1.5.”
“I’m not a scientist, but some fish appear to have lesions on them – little red sore places on them, whether that’s significant.” – Andrew Willner executive director NY/NJ Baykeeper According to Simmons, last week’s fish deaths only occurred the area of Matawan Creek in Keyport, near Brown’s Point Marina.
“They school up,” Simmons said, describing the fish. “They travel in huge schools and when they’re attacked – they’re the major game fish for all the other fish like blues and stripers – they tighten up into balls and they suck up the oxygen.”
In general, Simmons said dissolved oxygen is not a problem in the bay.
“The bunker are either lowering the oxygen themselves or in the marinas. Marinas are designed to slow water down. When you slow water down, things start growing and you can have pockets of low dissolved oxygen and pockets of algae growth,” he said.
Algae often grows in water that is of poor quality, Simmons explained.
“So when they seek algae out, they end up seeking poor water quality,” Simmons said.
As the environmental health coordinator, Simmons is not a fish expert, he explained. His opinion on the matter is that overdevelopment and subsequent stormwater runoff has played a role in the bunker problem.
“From 1950 to the present year, the population in Monmouth County has tripled,” Simmons said. “That’s a whole lot of runoff.”
NY/NJ Baykeeper Executive Director Andrew Willner has been following the recurring problem for years. Like Simmons, he believes several factors may be involved.
“There’s no question there has been – and it’s gotten chronically worse – a dissolved oxygen problem,” Willner said.
Willner said the issue exists throughout the Raritan Bay estuary.
“In my patrols around New York and New Jersey we saw a similar situation in Jamaica Bay, in the Rockaway peninsula,” he said. “We’ve been having reports since the end of June that this has been a problem, and one of things that’s been troubling me, besides the fact that there’s a lot of dead fish, there didn’t seem to be a significant amount of interest from the New Jersey DEP or in New York. … I guess this last one was big enough and visible enough to get their attention.”
“I’m not a scientist, but some fish appear to have lesions on them – little red sore places on them, whether that’s significant,” Willner said. In response to the theory that the bunker are being chased by bluefish, Willner said it’s possible, but he is somewhat skeptical.
“I saw very few fish with bite marks out of them,” Willner said. “And you would expect that if they were pushed into a small space by predators.”
Another theory points to increased levels of nitrogen as the leading cause of depleted oxygen levels. According to Willner, nitrogen causes algae blooms, which lead to low oxygen levels.
“The bay has gotten warmer, earlier,” Willner explained. “There’s more nitrogen going into the water. … More people, more nitrogen. More lawns and more fertilizers.”
Willner explained that for some time, he has been concerned about the effects of overdevelopment, chemical fertilizers and stormwater runoff. He said he would not rule out the possibility that the fish deaths are the result of “some poisonous agent.” But “wouldn’t even begin to speculate what they might be,” he added.
Keyport Environmental Commission Chairman Rowland Seckinger reported that among locals there are three prevailing theories, one of which is that a combination of heavy rainfall, garbage washing into the bay and an overall lack of oxygen may have led to the suffocation of the bunker. “We’ve had these enormous rains,” Seckinger said on Monday, adding the storms have “washed a lot of debris into the water.”
Another prevailing theory is similar in nature but has bluefish chasing the bunker into tight areas where they then suffocate. Finally, some speculate that commercial fishermen are “netting them and dumping them.”
Seckinger doesn’t buy the last theory.
“We watch this water pretty careful,” Seckinger said. “Our porch is right on the water. We have a view of half the harbor. … That kind of massive dragging, I believe we’d see them.”
Also, “I think the fishermen would talk about it,” Seckinger said. “They resent the commercial fishermen.”
As Willner put it, “It’s a mystery to me.”