CENTREVILLE, Md. -- Some 30,000 fish floated belly-up on the Corsica River this week.

Just two days ago, Gov. Bob Ehrlich announced plans -- along the same river -- to clean the state's waterways.

"The Corsica must improve," Ehrlich said. "Our goal is to remove the Corsica from the (federal) list of impaired waters."

The governor's plans involve raising millions of dollars to clean the river and the bay (Full Story).

But in the same week, tens of thousands of fish turned up dead along the same river. WBAL-TV 11 News reporter John Sherman reported that the Maryland Department of the Environment blames the unprecedented fish kill on naturally-occurring algae blooms.

Local watermen, however, question how natural the fish kill really is.

Joe Edwards, a waterman who has been crabbing for 20 years, said he has seen fish kills before, but never anything like this.

"Fish were dead all of a sudden one day," he said. "Fish scattered everywhere, almost like raindrops. I mean, just great long rafts of them."

Sherman reported the dead fish were tightly concentrated near the Centreville Wharf. The view from SkyTeam 11 showed huge bands of dead fish, spanning miles of the river.

So, with locals saying one thing and the state claiming another, 11 News asked Brent Walls, an environmental scientist, to test the water.

"It's choking the oxygen out of the water, so therefore, the fish can't breathe," Walls said.

Walls, who works for the Chester River Association, agrees with the state that a natural algae bloom contributed to the fish kill. However, he argued that that's not all.

"It's much more than some natural occurrence. There has to been something that was either put in the water by mistake, or some kind of occurrence, timing of events that happened to where you get this type of result," he said.

The fish may remain in the water until birds and the current wipe them away.

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