NJ residents forced to stay indoors as ‘disgusting’ smell of rotting fish plagues city: ‘You can’t breathe’

There’s something fishy about this New Jersey town.

Residents of Osborn Island in Little Egg Harbor have been forced to stay indoors as the strong smell of rotting fish engulfs the town.

Thousands of dead fish are floating up in a lagoon located in the area. The locals are now unable to see the water because there are so many of the stinking corpses there.

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

“Well, if you were ever in 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 surge of deaths.

Health officials warn against swimming in infected waters.

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

DiGrande moved to the beach town in 2019 and said 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 out. You can’t breathe. You really can’t stay out more than 10 minutes.”

The dead fish are also attracting large flocks of seagulls that are wreaking havoc and littering the entire city.

“It’s uncomfortable. You don’t want to spend time outside. People usually come down here in the summer and swim, but you can’t do that now,” Fin Handel told 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 neighborhood of Beachwood, prompting officials to ban swimming for the rest of the summer.

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

“Whenever we get heavy rain, between the spring and summer, it just ends up getting more deposition from the goose droppings, which causes the PH of the water to go quite high,” Beachwood resident Paul Allocco told News12 New Jersey .