Catastrophic Greens Lake fish kill imminent

Greens Lake © Elizabeth Merritt

VRFish, the recreational fishing peak body in Victoria, is calling on Acting Water Minister, Richard Wynne, to immediately deliver water to Greens Lake to prevent an impending and devastating fish kill from occurring.

VRFish Chairman, Mr. Rob Loats, said "Greens Lake, near Corop, has been heavily invested with recreational fisher licence fund money and the resulting multi-million-dollar regional economic impact from recreational tourism at this lake should make it a no brainer for the Government to step in and fix."

Formally an irrigation storage, Greens Lake was decommissioned by Goulburn Murray Water in 2019. Since then, the water levels have steadily declined to 22 per cent capacity and threaten the native fish population in the lake.

"It's not good enough that Victorian taxpayers can fund water saving infrastructure for irrigators yet not receive one drop of water to support our recreational activity or even native fish survival at this important lake."

"Instead, for a $200,000 a year saving to the water authority, we get to watch the slow deaths of tens of thousands of large native fish, the death of an important recreational lake generating millions in regional expenditure and don't forget the Corop community, their general store is now closed."

Geoff Miller with Charlegrark cod - photo © Victorian Fisheries Authority

The low water levels combined with a spell of hot weather is expected to kill the 337,000 Murray cod and golden perch that have been stocked into the lake over the past decade. Stocking Greens Lake has cost recreational fishers around $1.5 million from their recreational fishing licence fund.

"We do not want to see our iconic Murray cod go belly up on the lake. There will be community outrage once the first one-metre Murray cod hits the surface."