t turns out, it wasn't pollution, but a natural phenomenon that resulted in a massive fish kill Wednesday morning that became an all-you-can-eat buffet for seagulls.
Baltimore City Department of Public Works crews did their best to collect as many dead fish as they could. WBALTV.com observed DPW crews on land and on a boat picking up dead fish from the Inner Harbor near the Maryland Science Center. The stretch of dead fish extended well past the science center.
A passerby told WBALTV.com she walks by the harbor every day and has never seen anything like this.
"It just looks like a really unhealthy situation, especially after we were told that we could swim in this water," said Renee Hammel.
"Just a few months (after) when they said we can swim here, this isn't an indication that our harbor is safe," said Charyl Laird.
Not only was it disgusting, it smelled like death. Well, it was death.
"This is not a result of pollution. This is not because there is some sort of toxin in the water. It's a naturally occurring phenomenon called a thermal inversion," said Adam Lindquist, the manager of the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore's Healthy Harbor Initiative.
Lindquist told 11 News the fish kill was due to cold weather overnight that caused the surface water in the harbor to get colder faster than the water at the bottom.
"That colder water is heavier, so they have a tendency to switch places, and that pulls up bacteria from the bottom of the harbor that sucks all the oxygen out of the water. (Then, there's) not enough oxygen for these fish to breathe at the surface," Lindquist explained.
Blue crabs were dying, too, as they couldn't get enough oxygen either. Lindquist told 11 News that as long as the weather pattern continues, there may be more fish kills.
Turnover occurs every year in late summer or early fall. Most of the time, fish feel the water cooling and get out of Baltimore Dodge. This year, they didn't.
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