sgbeachbum: deadfish III @ northwestern singapore

It appears that the local fishfarms are deliberately dumping deadfish into local waters. There may have been a 'depleted oxygen' incident affecting the Northwestern waters off Lim Chu Kang.

This 'dry weather-no rain-low oxygen' explanation favours the fish farmers but it of course (perhaps the fish farmers are simply overstocking their pens?) does not explain why the other fish in the area (like those free swimming in the Sungei Buloh Reserve) did not seem to be affected. If they had, there would have been many many more dead fish seen floating.

The story seems to be that proper disposal of dead fish was organised and that none of the affected fishfarms had dumped fish 'over the side'. Instead all dead fish were collected and transported to the Lim Chu Kang jetty for proper disposal.

Sadly this explanation does not fit what was seen in the waters around Lim Chu Kang and the SBWR.

It may be that the local fishfarms did not throw away dead fish. However, it looks like they released dying fish into the surrounding waters. Why wait for the soon-to-be-dead fish to die? Mercy release? This now unpopular quasi-religious practice never did involve the release of dying animals, did it?

What's even worse is finding obvious signs that dead fish were 'released' despite the denials.

Here are pics from the northwestern coast showing fish meal bags (the usual container for fish meal as supplied to aquaculture establishments in Singapore) stuffed with dead fish. Now this makes the denials smell ... fishy. Who would place live but dying fish in such bags and leave them adrift to reach the shore? So dead (or maybe including dying) fish were in fact placed in bags and set adrift and away releasing the farmers from certain environmental obligations and responsibilities.

If visiting ships in port have to pay for a trash collection service where trash is collected from them, then our local fish farms should also pay for similar trash collection. It should not be left to the local fish farms to bring their trash to a determined trash point on the shore. We know that expectation is a failure now isn't it?

Whilst some fish farmers may comply, there are others who clearly do not. These recalcitrant farmers take advantage of the cover of darkness to dump their waste anywhere they feel like it. And there is more than dead fish generated by these off-shore farms.

The workers living on these floating farms generate waste as well...both human as well as general household waste. (General waste includes, inter alia, styrofoam, plastic bags, empty fish meal bags, bottles, lightbulbs, lubricating oils and grease for machinery, etc.) Where does all this go if the trash collection points are not used. (If you want to know more about Singapore's coastal trash, visit http://coastalcleanup.nus.edu.sg/.)

There desperately needs to be a more formal system of trash collection from licensed fish farms.

Given the poor track record as shown through this incident, perhaps it is time for Parliament to legislate standards and practices at fish farms and this could include compulsory fee-based trash collection to leave no doubt as to what really happens to the trash generated 24x7x365.

Or we could all just continue pretending that there is no problem and that both our fish farms and our waters are perfectly fine.

Of course, there are many sources of pollution in our waters and the locally licensed fish farms are but one. Will any face prosecutions for this series of dumplings? Probably not.... but why not?

links to related posts :
http://sgbeachbum.blogspot.com/2013/06/deadfish-northwestern-singapore-coast.html
http://sgbeachbum.blogspot.com/2013/07/deadfish-ii-northwestern-singapore.html
http://wildshores.blogspot.sg/2013/07/fish-farms-dumping-dead-fishes.html