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

There have been mass fish deaths on the Murray River in Victoria after flooding led to blackwater – pictured are seven yellowbelly and one young Murray Cod, 27 October 2022. Photograph: Peter Phillips

Peter Phillips has spent a lot of time in blackwater.

He paddled 2,000km over 50 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.