SCE denies fish deaths on the coasts of Busaiteen

Manama : The Supreme Council for Environment (SCE) yesterday denied that thousands of dead fish were found on  the coasts of Busaiteen, similar to a recent occurrence in Kuwait.

“With reference to the reports posted on social media on Tuesday, regarding fish deaths on the coast of Busaiteen, a team from the council conducted a survey on the mentioned coast, but no cases of fish deaths were reported,” SCE said in a press statement issued here yesterday.

“Fishermen of the area reported that they did not observe any phenomenon of fish deaths on the coast of Busaiteen. However, some fishermen were likely to dispose of a small number of unwanted small fish in the sea,” the statement read.

SCE mentioned in its report that it is closely monitoring the latest developments of the fish deaths reported in Kuwait.

The authorities in Kuwait had attributed the phenomenon earlier this week to “random disposal of unwanted fish by some fishermen, in addition to excesses in the discharge of untreated water in the sea, pollutants from the discharge of rainwater networks and the sudden change in water temperatures and low level of dissolved oxygen in it.”

SCE praised Agriculture and Marine Resources Affairs Undersecretary in Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning Ministry Shaikh Khalifa bin Isa Al Khalifa, who commented on the case in an interview with a local Arabic daily saying, “The fish of Bahrain is not polluted and the spread of videos through social media claiming that is normal. The detected numbers do not constitute a phenomenon of collective death of fish and the reason is probably the increase in temperatures.”

“On April 23, 2017, the Marine Environment Monitoring Programme (MEP)  inspected 15 maritime sites including Al Jasra, Umm Al Na’asan, Jaradah, Bulthama, Askar and other locations across the Kingdom’s territorial waters. Immediate preliminary results showed normal levels, especially with regard to the temperature, which can lead to the deaths of fish, but they were within normal rates, ranging between 25 and 27 degrees Celsius,”the council said.

“In spite of not detecting anything that is alerting, the Council is continuing to cooperate with the relevant authorities to monitor the sea water and we hope that citizens and residents would contact the Council’s specialists on hotline 80001112 in case they found anything suspicious in regards to marine environment,” the council added.