In 2015, thousands of fish died because toxic substances formed in the water when a mill was extinguished. Almost 20 tons of dead fish are the balance. The fish population has not recovered to this day.
Kirchberg/Jagst (dpa/lsw) - Seven years after the fire in a mill in Kirchberg (Schwäbisch Hall district), in which a nearby body of water was contaminated, the fish population has not yet recovered. Biodiversity in the Jagst is far from having reached the state it was in before the momentous event in 2015, said Bruno Fischer from the environmental protection organization Nabu. At that time, fertilizer with ammonium nitrate was flushed into the Jagst from the extinguishing water, and 20 tons of dead fish were then recovered. Previously there were 28 different species, recently there were significantly fewer.
It will be years before the Jagst has recovered from the disaster, said Fischer, who is also chairman of the Nabu in Kirchberg. A major problem is the lack of continuity of the water body. Migratory fish such as the barbel could not disperse properly due to barrier structures such as the weir in Kirchberg. The fish cannot easily overcome the structures, which also hinders recolonization.
The state government had repeatedly tried to revive the Jagst with targeted actions in recent years by relocating fish from one Jagst section to the other. The Ministry of the Environment assumes that the original density can be restored in a few years, as it wrote in response to a request from the FDP parliamentary group on Jagst. Environmentalists and fishing associations see things differently. The topic of continuity in particular must come to the fore much more.
The Jagst is a low mountain range river in northern Baden-Württemberg. It is one of the tributaries of the Neckar and is home to rare animals and protected species.
