Interesting paddle up the Anglesea river this arvo, water has turned crystal clear...I mean clear like a swimming pool....& all the fish are dead on the bottom, including eels.
Whatever has killed the fish also "flocked" the water clear like aluminium sulphate, there is a fine layer of sediment on the bodies.
Anyone have some ideas? It may be natural, it happened last year a few days after heavy rain, in the Anglesea river & Aires Inlet river, because of this, I don't think its related to the Anglesea power station.
Mate freeze them and contact Julian Pepperell this guy is the king of marine biology and I'm pretty sure he has government support.
www.julianpepperell.com
Something fishy is going on ...
I wonder what is causing the flocculation... There is potential that natural minerals and some salinity are reacting to cause flocculation. Then positive and negative charged particles stick together... Hydroxides come into play... And is that then stripping oxygen from the water... ???
Someone should know though ...
A little more research tells me that the flocculant aluminum sulphate does occur naturally in volcanic environments and in coal. And there is plenty of coal through there. So that might start to explain the flocc ..... And I would put $5 down to say this stuffs up the usual water quality, to vary either ph levels or add hydroxides, and or strip oxygen...
It is disturbing. It doesn't sound natural, but I've got no idea. There has certainly been a lot of rain and much of it has run off from the surrounding land into the river. Has your local newspaper picked up on it?
Let us know when you get a plausible answer for it.
I also found this ....
Sodium hydroxide reacts with aluminium and water to release hydrogen gas. The aluminium takes the oxygen atom from sodium hydroxide (NaOH), which in turn takes the oxygen atom from the water, and releases the two hydrogen atoms.
So it does appear to be plausible that it is happening naturally ....
Hmmm, I just read this article: earthsci.org/processes/weather/acidrain/acidrain.html
I thought these three points were interesting:
I wouldn't focus too much on the power station, as I sad, last years event happened at the same time at Aries as well, quite a separate area. (Up wind of any power station pollution)
Also that event was tested by Bawon water & they placed signs at the river bank saying dont swim in the water as it had become alkaline......not Acid.
So what is causing the alkalinity? My uneducated guess is there is something coming out of the water table after rain changing the PH?
The Power Station dumped far too much sodium hydroxide into the river to offset the damage the acid rain was causing.
Probably caused by acid sulfate soil run off. The soils are natural but flood mitigation works and artificial drains cutting into the groundwater usually mobilise the run off and prevent saltwater buffering the system. Acid water dissolves aluminium and other metals and these flock out when seawater buffers the ph back up. These metals are quite toxic and swimming in what is effectively battery acid is also a poor lifestyle choice for a fish.
some info on http://www.clw.csiro.au/acidsulfatesoils/
Bill
I might ring Barwon Water and my mate at the power station, to see if they know.
The case is closed.
It is a natural event along the lines of what Bill said, the EPA, & the Surfcoast Shire are aware of it, they have told me the same story.
The end result after a heavy rain is a very low PH level......& the fish are not fond of that.
Yeah, Seems like a similar event happened there in 2000
LOL ^^^ I forgot about that guy ^^^
Yeah we need to get 10,000 sups paddling down the Anglesea river and into portphilip heads and then all eat flathead to show em that it's f..cked up
there is a power station there 
