Humans are flocking to area lakes to get
relief from the heat, but there's nothing
cool and refreshing about the water in a
small cove in the northwest corner of
Lake Arlington.
The water is killing some fish, including
some good sized game fish like this
channel cat.
Obviously, we've got a fish die off here.
And my my best educated
guess as to what the problem is, is,
uh, we have, uh, well,
not enough oxygen in the water.
The oxygen is low because of the water
temperature. One hundred and two degrees
today is not only heated by the sun,
but also by the hot water pumped into the
lake by a nearby T.U.
electric generating plant.
A recent sewage spill is also causing
problems by destroying oxygen.
It was a hour sewer line that was
blocked up and it ran for about
two weeks and
we got a lot of liquid sewage
off of that.
The experts say it's not unusual for
small, fragile fish like Chad to start
dying when water temperatures go up.
But large, hearty catfish aren't usually
affected.
About 20 have died in this cove.
Some local fishermen like James Haine say
the dead fish started showing up four
days ago.
To me, that's just a waste.
When they come up like that,
the thought is that temperatures rose so
rapidly in this cove that the fish
got trapped and died, the wind
moving the leaves. And this tree is the
best news there is for the fish in the
area, because when the wind picks up,
it puts oxygen into the lake,
which should keep any more fish from
dying.
Mary Anne Connor, Texas News 5.