Fish kill worries residents of Uyyalikuppam

Officials suspect fall in oxygen level to be the cause

Fishermen of Uyyalikuppam in Chengalpattu district on the East Coast Road are worried over fish dying in the Buckingham Canal near the bar mouth. For two days now, they have been seeing dead fish, including madava, keluthi and kendai floating in the murky water. R. Ranganathan, a resident, said the water was frothing and had a chemical smell about it. “Some 30 families from our village go fishing in the canal and we are worried about this. The canal joins the Palar near our village, which means this murky, polluted water will pollute the river too,” he said and added that two years ago crabs at the crab fattening facility put up by the villagers had died because of this pollution. M.D. Dayalan of the Indhiya Meenavar Sangam said that there were a couple of aquaculture farms in the neighbourhood and these were letting out untreated cleaning liquids on a regular basis. “These chemicals are causing the deaths of fish in the canal,” he said.