The NSW Environment Protection Authority (EPA) is investigating a fish kill event in the Hunter River at Mount Thorley.
Officers were called to the site on Friday 20 March where they collected water and fish samples for analysis.
Reports from locals suggest hundreds of dead fish were seen along a 2-kilometre stretch of the river. At this early stage, the cause is unknown.
NSW EPA Director Operations, David Gathercole, said the Hunter River at Mount Thorley receives inputs from a range of sources including industrial estates, agricultural runoff and mining activities.
We are contacting any licenced facilities in the area that have known discharge points into the river to ensure they are operating normally and to determine if a pollution incident has occurred,” Mr Gathercole said.
We will work with other relevant government agencies to finalise sampling results and monitor water quality in the area.
As a precaution, we recommend anyone swimming in the river follows standard NSW Health advice not to drink any untreated water.
For downstream users if you don’t need to extract water from the river, wait until we have confirmation that the water quality is normal.”
Water sample analysis results should be available within the next week. Fish sample analysis could take up to three weeks.