Louisiana: Conditions after Ida killed 280M fish inland

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Officials estimate that conditions after Hurricane Ida last summer killed 280 million fish in inland southeast Louisiana. The department says catchable fish are usually scarce for about a year in areas which had big fish kills, but populations rebound. The department says that 19 of 20 big fish kills after Ida were in areas that had hurricane-force winds. Tropical storm winds and storm surge churn up sediment and dump debris into waterways. The debris decomposes, using up dissolved oxygen. An inland fisheries official says the kills were concentrated in about a 2,800-square-mile area.