Fishing for answers in Menindee Lakes
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.australiangeographic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/MURRAY-DARLING-ThomasWielecki-054-scaled.jpg?fit=900%2C506&ssl=1)
WaterNSW recently commenced its oxygenation trial at Menindee Lakes in western New South Wales, about 200km upstream of the junction of the Murray and Darling rivers, following a spate of mass fish-kill events in recent years.
The trial, which began in February, will pump highly oxygenated water into the Darling River in a bid to improve the lakes’ water quality, which has been steadily declining for a number of years due to poor management, drought, over irrigation and reduced water flow.
![A man in a lake with hundreds of dead fish floating around him.](https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/MURRAY-DARLING-ThomasWielecki-059-1800x1201.jpg)
![A man in blue swimming trunks walks through a river surrounded by hundreds of floating dead fish.](https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/MURRAY-DARLING-ThomasWielecki-252-1800x1200.jpg)
In March 2023 an estimated 30 million fish suffocated after the Darling River’s oxygen levels plummeted during a heatwave. This fish-kill event was preceded by toxic blue-green algal blooms in 2018 and 2019, which killed about 10,000 fish and 1 million fish respectively.
If the trial is successful, the technology will be used to prevent and mitigate future fish-kill events at Menindee Lakes, and possibly elsewhere.