On Thursday morning residents in the Remington Park area woke up to an unpleasant smell and the sight of hundreds of dead fish floating in the playa lake.
Bethany Hunter lives nearby and says she comes out to the park with her dog and 4-year-old daughter nearly each day. She shared that when she began walking to the park on Thursday, that it did not take her long to realize something was wrong.
“You didn’t have to walk far to realize something was off,” said Hunter, referring to the foul odor. “We continued to walk, and there was more and more [fish] it was crazy. I was like, there’s something that was really wrong. I’ve never seen it like this ever, and I come here all the time.”
Like Hunter, Sarah Alvarez was walking her two dogs around the park as part of their weekly routine. She shared that normally she lets the dogs play at the water’s edge, but that the sight of dead fish brushing up against the shore and the bad smell, was more than enough to make her think twice.
“This was very abnormal, this is not what we usually see here,” said Alvarez. “We’ve lived here for over 10 years, so I’ve seen it before, but never this bad, with this many fish.”
Crews with the City of Lubbock Environmental Department arrived to the playa lake Thursday morning to begin inspecting and determining the amount of total fish killed. They shared that while hundreds of fish were found dead, there are thousands of others that are still swimming in the lake’s center.
Officials determined that the deaths were not a result of contamination, but from natural causes within the water.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
