Sad sight. Nearly ten tons of dead fish were found in Lake Enghien-les-Bains (Val-d'Oise) after the drought and the high heat of recent days, we learned on Friday. "Two factors have accumulated: the heat wave and the drought which dried up the sources feeding the lake", explained to AFP, Jean-Pierre Enjalbert, president of SIARE, the mixed union in charge of water management on the territory.
“The heat and the lack of a clear, clean water supply” resulted in a decrease in oxygen in the lake water which caused the death of the fish, he adds. "We are on the verge of having collected ten tonnes" of dead fish, he continues. This exceptional fish mortality is a "first" in the Val-d'Oise, specifies the prefecture.
A "predictable disaster"?
According to the town hall of Enghien, the level of this artificial lake of 40 hectares, one meter deep on average, has fallen by nearly 20 cm and the temperature of its water reached nearly 29 degrees during the heatwave. Started Wednesday morning, the collection of fish was still in progress on Friday and a pumping water oxygenation system was set up, before the upcoming development of a filtering basin upstream, specifies the president of SIARE .
A pumping system of this type was rightly claimed by the association Paris Animaux Zoopolis (PAZ) which regrets a "foreseeable disaster" with a "heat wave announced by Météo France" in a lake known to shelter many fish such as carp, roaches, pikes or eels.
The association is now worried about the risk of a "second disaster" with birds potentially affected in turn due to the poor quality of the water, according to its president Amandine Sanvisens, who had not, for the time being , had no knowledge of dead birds.
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