Fish killed in summer at lake in the Fremont region

OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) – A small lake in Fremont faces a big fish problem. As in a large amount of dead fish.

The summer-killed fish greeted residents of private Lake Summer Haven on Friday morning, a day after a specialist treated part of the lake for algae.

“The smell is awful, the smell is awful,” said Suzanne Sall, who lives by the lake most of the year. Her friend Sheila Andre lives in Summer Haven year round and has been going to the lake since she was a child. “I went down to try and pick up some of the fish,” Andre said. “I thought I was going to throw up.”

Since Friday, residents have been collecting, cleaning and removing fish from the shore. Every day more dead fish need to be removed.

“The first day or so was carp and a lot of coarse fish, white bass and chad gizzard,” said Steve Mathison, who lives in Omaha and spends much of the summer in his house by the sea. Lake. “Then around noon from Saturday to yesterday the game fish started dying, it would be your crappie, your white bass, some of the catfish and today it would be the game fish again, mostly sea bass. crappie and smallmouth bass. “

Mathison said there are plenty of fish left for now and that in the future residents just want to know what happened. Aquatic biologist Rob Hofpar has over twenty years of experience and said his treatment should not have caused such an oxygen crash. It was originally called in to treat the water last week after residents reported a green, almost gooey gaze on the lake.

Hofpar said a large algal bloom like the one they were seeing could cause the water to lose oxygen quickly.

In a letter to residents he shared with WOWT, Hofpare, an aquatic biologist with Nebraska Lake Management, said: Cold fronts that are killing algae blooms, which is exactly what happened on Friday . “

The results of water samples taken at an independent clinic by Hofpare should give a good idea of ​​the cause of the fish’s death. It may take over a month to achieve these results. Some residents have expressed concerns about the condition of their well water, in addition to the health risks that rotting fish could cause.

Meanwhile, the cleanup continues and those looking forward to a quiet Labor Day weekend on the lake are likely to have other choices.

“You think of tubers, water skiers, people looking to get in the water, it will probably be very limited,” Mathison said. “Whether or not you’re talking about a biohazard is one thing, but it’s just the lens. Does anyone really want to get in there?

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