NJ residents forced to stay indoors after town plagued by ‘disgusting’ smell of rotting fish: ‘You can’t breathe’

There’s something fishy in this New Jersey town.

Residents of Osborn Island in Little Egg Harbor have been forced to remain inside their homes as the pungent smell of rotting fish overwhelms the town.

Thousands of dead fish are floating up into a lagoon in the area. Locals are unable to see the water because there are so many of the stinking carcasses there.

“It’s disgusting, it is the worst smell in my entire life. It even goes inside the house. I burned every candle I could possibly find and now I’m in my infusers,” Debbie Wuss, who lives near the lagoon, told CBS News .

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“Well, if you were ever at the Fulton Fish Market in Manhattan, it’s probably about 10 times worse,” Joseph DiGrande told FOX 29 Philadelphia .

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection told CBS News that the agency “is aware of the fish mortality” and “determined that poor water quality resulting from warmer temperatures and low dissolved oxygen in the lagoon” caused the wave of deaths.

Health officials warn against swimming in the infested waters.

The agency claimed “that this was an isolated event, and most of the dead fish will naturally be removed from the lagoon by the tides, or by tide flow,” but residents say it’s become an ongoing issue.

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DiGrande moved to the beach town in 2019 and said that the rotten situation has been happening two to three times a year for three years now.

“Here we go again. We wait all summer to enjoy our home on the water, and you’re literally locked in the house for two weeks,” DiGrande said.

“It’s definitely unhealthy. You can’t go outside. You can’t breathe. You really can’t stay outside more than 10 minutes.”

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The dead fish are also attracting large flocks of seagulls that are wreaking havoc and leaking waste throughout the town.

“It’s uncomfortable. You don’t really want to spend time outside. People normally are coming down here for the summers and they’re swimming, but you can’t do that right now,” Fin Handel said to CBS News.

And unfortunately for those in New Jersey, Osborn Island isn’t the only town with disgusting conditions ruining their summer.

High levels of fecal bacteria were recently found in the water at Beachwood Beach West in the Jersey Shore borough of Beachwood, leading officials to ban swimming for the rest of the summer.

The Ocean County beach had four straight weeks of high fecal bacteria readings by the Ocean County Health Department leading up to the closure.

“Whenever we get heavy rain, between like spring and summer, it just ends up having more of the deposit from the goose poop, which causes the pH of the water to go pretty high,” Beachwood resident Paul Allocco told News12 New Jersey .

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