‘Smells like sewage’: blackwater from Victorian floods causes mass fish deaths

We're measuring for E.coli,' says state's chief environmental scientist who advises: stay out of the water'

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Peter Phillips has spent a lot of time in blackwater.

He paddled 2,000km over50 days along the Murray River during the 2016 floods. Most of that was in blackwater, an event often caused by flooding when high levels of organic material are washed into the river systems, and which basically sucks all the oxygen out of the water" as it decays.