Tons of dead sardines still clogging US marina

The Jakarta Post -

Thousands of slimy, reeking sardines gurgled to the surface of an increasingly murky Southern California marina on Thursday as crews kept scooping and vacuuming tons of fish that perished in a huge, unexplained die-off.

Volunteers and city workers scrambled for a third day to remove the bloated fish that bobbed to the surface of King Harbor. It could take about a week to clean up the mess.

"The virtue is we can get them easier," police Sgt. Phil Keenan said. "The vice is they smell."

An occasional breeze carried the stench from the shallow marina where the fish died late Monday.

By Thursday afternoon, 65 tons of fish had been removed, with an estimated 30 tons remaining, Fire Chief Dan Madrigal said.

Sunny, hot weather made finishing the cleanup a priority before the smell became any worse and the decomposing fish corpses feed bacteria that could reduce oxygen levels in the marina water and kill other sea life, officials said.

The water was already beginning to look brackish with tiny bubbles, scales and scum floating on the surface with the decomposing fish.

Volunteers and city workers netted fish and picked them by hand from the marina rocks. Keenan said several techniques were being used, including vacuuming the bottom.

"Depending on where the fish are, we have to use a different technique," Kennan said. "There's not a catch-all method - no pun intended."

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