Authorities are investigating a potential second fish kill at Lake Macquarie, after receiving reports of hundreds of fish washing up at Mannering Park yesterday.
Residents have questioned whether a nearby power station could have caused it.
It’s the second incident in one month, after thousands were discovered dead in early August.
A video obtained exclusively by NBN News shows Delta Electricity workers in the lake with nets before driving off with a ute-load of fish.
In the footage, local resident Darran Budden can be heard asking: “What’s in the back of the ute bro?”
The worker replied: “No need to go in there mate”, before Budden looks inside and says: “oh wow, look at all that fish”.
Budden claims the Vales Point power station could be to blame.
“We got out there pretty quick yesterday and got a couple videos of fish coming out of the outlet, so we know where they’re coming from – they’re dying in the canal, not the lake,” he told NBN News.
But Delta Electricity said it was trying to help and did contact the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) yesterday.
“Rather than leave fish to rot on the shoreline, Delta (as a good local citizen) deployed some staff to assist with the clean-up. There were about 100 fish, mostly mullet,” a spokesperson told NBN News.
“Delta has undertaken its own investigations and has fully cooperated with the EPA as part of its investigations, which included EPA site attendance and water sampling yesterday.”
However, local environment agencies said there are still unanswered questions.
“That’s good, but really the point of the matter is how did the fish die in the first place?” Jo Lynch from the Hunter Community Environment Centre said.
The first fish kill, in early August, was determined to be a “natural event”.
The EPA has now collected water and fish samples from the second incident for urgent analysis.
Residents have been asked to contact Central Coast Council if they find more dead fish.
