A smart buoy with advanced technology has been deployed in Lake Macquarie to help track water quality.
The NSW EPA installed the buoy near Wyee Point, not far from Vales Point Power Station's hot-water outlet, following two massive fish kills.
Mannering Park residents have alleged that the power station caused the death of about 15,000 fish in two recent incidents.
The custom-built buoy uses pumps and sensors to sample water from different depths, before transmitting the data to the cloud for real-time analysis.
NSW EPA chief executive Tony Chappel said the buoy will contribute to the long-term understanding of water quality in the lake.
"The health of the lake is an important issue for us and the recent fish kills have understandably raised a lot of concern in the community."
The EPA sought to use the "best technology" to monitor any changes to "the largest saltwater lake in the southern hemisphere".
"Over the next six months, the buoy will provide our teams with vital baseline data, which will assess salinity, turbidity, oxygen, temperature and pH levels," he said.
The real-time data will help the EPA to "spot an issue before it's too late and hopefully protect against any further impacts on the lake's marine life".
Fisherman Darran Budden told the Herald last month that he believed the fish died in the power station's hot-water outlet canal before being washed onto the shores of Wyee Bay.
"The power station was the cause, I saw the dead fish coming out of the canal," Mr Budden said. He wants the fish stocks replaced and authorities to pinpoint the cause of the deaths, so it doesn't happen again.
Delta Electricity, which recently agreed to sell the power plant to a Czech company, said last month there was "no evidence at this point to conclusively identify a reason for the event", but it will "openly co-operate with the EPA".
The EPA said its investigation into the fish kills "remains a top priority".
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