- Osborn Island residents say they can’t enjoy their coastal town
Residents of a charming New Jersey seaside town say they have been trapped inside their homes as a foul stench spreads throughout the neighborhood.
The pungent odor is caused by tens of thousands of dead fish crowding the lagoon surrounding Osborn Island in Little Egg Harbor.
Locals say the smell is unavoidable, with one comparing it to that of a public toilet.
‘We wait all summer to enjoy our house on the water, and you’re literally locked in the house for two weeks,’ Joseph DiGrande he told Fox 29 Philadelphia.
“You can’t go outside. You can’t breathe. You can’t really stay outside for more than 10 minutes,” he added of life on Osborn Island, which is usually packed with people enjoying the sea air on their balconies, riding bikes or taking walks during the summer.
Residents of Osborn Island, New Jersey, say they have been unable to leave their homes because of the stench that permeates the neighborhood.
The lagoon has been flooded with tens of thousands of dead fish.
The dead fish are so close together that from an aerial view it is difficult to distinguish what is cluttering the water.
“It’s disgusting, it’s the worst smell of my entire life,” said Debbie Wuss he told CBS News.
“I burned all the candles I could find and now I’m on my infusers,” she said.
To make matters worse, residents say the smell has attracted swarms of seagulls, which have left their mark on the neighborhood.
“The birds are destroying the roofs of the houses,” said Bob O’Brien.
‘They are all over your cars, all over your boats.’
The smell has attracted swarms of seagulls, which are leaving their mark on the city.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has attributed the mass fish kill to a combination of warm temperatures and poor water quality.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection has attributed the mass fish kill to a combination of warm temperatures and poor water quality in the lagoon.
“Staff determined that poor water quality resulting from warmer temperatures and low dissolved oxygen in the lagoon caused fish mortality in the lagoon,” a spokesperson told CBS.
‘Fish and Wildlife staff determined that this was an isolated event and that most of the dead fish will be naturally removed from the lagoon by tides or tidal flow.’
But residents say this is the second time a mass fish kill has occurred in the lagoon in just one month, and DiGrande, who has lived in the area since 2019, said it has been happening two to three times a year for the past three years.
Joseph DiGrande, who has lived in the area since 2019, said this is a recurring problem in the city.
On occasion, he said, teams have come to vacuum up dead fish.
But so far, the Department of Environmental Protection has done nothing this time to help residents return to their coastal lifestyle, as health officials warn them not to swim in any body of water with a high concentration of fish.
“We’re not getting any help, and this isn’t the first time we’ve asked for it,” DiGrande said.