Warsaw, Aug. 21, (dpa/GNA) - The Polish government has accused Germany of spreading ‘fake news’ over potential causes of a massive fish die-off in the Oder river that runs along parts of their border.
“Attention, more fake news is being spread in Germany,” Polish Environment Minister Anna Moskwa wrote on Twitter on Saturday evening.
She was referring to reports Saturday that a laboratory in Germany’s Brandenburg state had detected excessive pesticide levels in the water.
Samples taken between August 7-9 at the Frankfurt Oder monitoring station, some 100 kilometres east of Berlin, showed high concentrations of a pesticide containing the active ingredient 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, the Brandenburg environment ministry said on Saturday.
Moskwa asserted that “in Poland, the substance was tested and found below the limit of quantification, i.e. with no impact on fish or other animals, and no connection to fish kills.”
Brandenburg ministry officials also said that it could be assumed that the detected dose was not immediately fatal to fish. The active ingredient is used as a weed killer, for example.
In the past few days, masses of dead fish have been discovered and collected in the Oder on the Polish and German sides. The exact cause has not yet been established.
Poland’s national conservative PiS government is under pressure because Polish authorities were hesitant to respond to the first indications of the fish kill.
In Germany, too, complaints were made that Polish authorities had not complied with the internationally agreed information chains.
Representatives of Poland’s ruling national conservative Law and Justice party (PiS) have responded to the criticism by criticizing neighbouring Germany and the Polish opposition.
GNA