Huge amounts of chemical waste were likely dumped into a river on the Polish-German border, Poland’s prime minister said Friday, killing tons of fish and creating an ecological disaster that could take years to clean up. Authorities said 150 Polish soldiers have been deployed to the 522-mile-long Oder River, which runs through Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic, to begin a clean-up operation. The chemical spill was likely intentional, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said in a podcast on Friday. “It is possible that huge amounts of chemical waste have been dumped into the Oder River, and this was done with full awareness of the risks and consequences,” Morawiecki said. “We will not let this matter go, we will not rest until the guilty are severely punished.” German water samples from the area revealed high levels of mercury, according to local media, but authorities are still investigating the source of the leak. Scientists speculate that there may be other causes for the mass fish deaths, including climate change. Polish troops erected a dam along the river to catch the dead fish and warned locals not to bathe in the water or eat fish caught in polluted parts of the river. Environmental groups criticized Poland’s government for its slow response to the contamination, which was noticed by local fishermen in late July. Germany’s environment ministry said Warsaw did not officially inform Berlin of the disaster until Thursday, weeks after the dead fish first appeared. “We know that the reporting chain that is provided for such cases did not work,” Environment Department spokesman Christopher Stolzenberg told reporters, according to the Associated Press. “An environmental disaster is looming,” German Environment Minister Steffi Lemke told the RND newspaper group. “All sides are working steadily to find the reasons for this mass [killing of fish] and minimize potential further damage.” Video posted on social media shows fish piling up and floating along the river bank. Local fishermen say they’ve been pulling dead fish and beavers out of the water for weeks. Scientists speculate that factors beyond deliberate dumping could be at play. The mercury could have settled in the river sediment due to past pollution, before being stirred up by recent dredging. Europe’s historic heat wave this summer could also be to blame. The continent is facing its worst drought in 500 years. Low water levels and high temperatures could suffocate the supply of oxygen to the river’s aquatic life and worsen existing pollution. “This is a problem we will increasingly face as we move into a world affected by climate change. The pollutants that are out there are more toxic because they are present in higher concentrations in drought conditions,” said David Taylor, professor of environmental change at the National University of Singapore. “We’re in this weird time now where we’re starting to see, more and more, not just the direct effects of climate change, like droughts and storms, but also the negative effects of climate loading.” How Seoul failed its most vulnerable, who flooded their underground homes In 2016, Vietnam blamed a steel factory on its coast for a toxic waste spill that killed around 100 tonnes of fish, in what has been described as the country’s worst environmental disaster. The spill contaminated 125 miles of coastline and put many fishermen in the area out of work. An internal government report found that the factory, run by Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics Group, had committed more than 50 violations, according to Reuters. On Friday, Morawiecki fired the head of the National Water Management Agency after 20,000 people signed a petition calling for his dismissal. He also fired the chief inspector of the country’s Environmental Protection Agency for not acting quickly enough. “The situation we are facing was by no means predictable, but certainly the relevant agencies could have acted more quickly,” he said in a Facebook post.
