Kymijoki regulation has become the fate of numerous salmon fry in Langinkoski Kotka.
Fish died as a result of legal runs. At the beginning of September, the hydropower company started to flow water to another riverbed, and part of the historic Langinkoski remained dry.
“The regulations changed between the two branches of the river, and the fish were left to die in the side branches,” says an underwater photographer from Kotka Teemu Lakka.
Lakka was filming in Langinkoski at the beginning of the week, when he noticed dozens of dead baby salmon swimming in a dried-up river. The fish born in nature were only summer-old, i.e. born in spring.
According to Laka, this is a phenomenon every autumn in Kymijoki. However, he has never encountered a mass death of fish before.
“Now we in Kotka have a rotten fish-smelling attraction in Langinkoski”, says Lakka.
Dozens of salmon fry were left on dry land in Kotka’s Langinkoski as a result of the rapids of the Kymijoki.
One trout was also found among the dead fish.
From Päijänte The regulation of the river leading to the Gulf of Suomenlahti started in the 1960s. It aims to equalize the amount of water discharged from Päijänte so that it can be better utilized in electricity production at the Kymijoki power plants.
The power company Kolsin Voima runs water from the eastern main branch of Kymijoki to the Korkeakoski branch, which has a higher drop height and power economy benefit than in the eastern Langinkoski branch.
According to the permit conditions, from the beginning of September, the Langinkoski branch does not have to divert as much water as in the summer.
“If there is sufficient flow in the river, there will be enough water for both branches,” says the leading water management expert Pekka Vähänäkki From the ely center of Southeast Finland.
Now the water was not enough, and the result was the drying of the side beds of Langinkoski.
Vähanäkki has come across similar fish deaths before: “They are a problem almost every autumn.”
“The obligations imposed on the hydropower economy are marginal compared to the harm it causes to the fish economy. Something should be done. It’s not nice that precious salmon fry are dying of drought,” states Vähänäkki.
Kind of reminds me that Langinkoski the historically valuable milieu of the nature reserve and the imperial fishing lodge is such that there should be water in the side banks all year round.
Water power however, regulation must not cause significant harm to fish.
Head of the water system of the ely center of Southeast Finland Matti Vaittinen reminds that if the regulation project causes considerable adverse effects on the aquatic environment and other uses of the water body, the water authority must take steps to find out the possibilities for reducing the harm.
“The fish deaths show that the harms are no longer just minor,” says Vaittinen.
According to the Water Act, the authorities must therefore find out the possibilities of reducing the harmful effects of regulation, if significant disadvantages occur.
According to Vaittinen, changes are necessary in Kymijoki and the solutions do not necessarily have to be complicated.
One of the reasons for the fish deaths is that the water dropped so quickly that the fish that had spread to the side banks during high water did not have time to catch up.
“It’s self-evident that the situation would be easier if the runoff was calculated more slowly and not in a one-time batch,” says Vaittinen.
Solutions is being searched for in a joint project that has just started, in which the ely centers of South-Eastern Finland and Western Finland, the Finnish Environment Agency, the University of Eastern Finland and the Natural Resources Center strive to find solutions to reduce the disadvantages of regulating hydropower.
“This case, in all its boringness, underlines the need for such an examination. We understand the importance of Kymijoki in energy production, but the natural life cycle of migrating fish must also be included in the equation,” says Vaittinen.
The side bed of Langinkoski dried up completely when the waters were discharged into the other branch of Kymijoki.
Kymijoki has been the most important salmon river in Southern Finland. With the construction of hydroelectric power plants, the rise of salmon in the river stopped in the 1930s.
In connection with the lowest power dams in Kymijoki, there are currently three fish ways, along which it is possible for fish to reach the breeding areas above the dams.
There are two fish roads in the Langinkoski branch, one in the Korkeakoski branch. The fish ladder has worked poorly. Especially the Korkeakoski fishing road, which was completed in 2016, has turned out to be a disappointment.
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