Dead fish mystery at Lea Lake: krqe.com

Roswell, New Mexico - Something mysterious is happening at Bottomless Lakes State Park. Lea Lake is closed to swimming after hundreds of dead fish started washing up on shore Friday.

An empty lake on a hot summer day is an unusual sight for Lea Lake, which is normally packed with swimmers this time of year.

"It is extremely weird to see it this empty," explained lifeguard Leonardo Granados. "Even on weekdays there's still quite a few people that come out. Weekends, that's the worst whenever there's the most people, probably about 200 people come out," Granados said, referring to how packed Lea Lake usually is.

Granados has been a lifeguard at Bottomless Lakes for three years. With the recent fish-kill, his duties have changed from making sure people in the lake are safe, to keeping an eye out for dead fish.

"We use a net, put on some gloves, we've got this little trash picker-up and just use that to pick up the fish," Granados said.

A fish kill like this has never happened before in this area. Lifeguards said they noticed something strange when the normal group of fish that used to hang out right next to the dock, weren't there anymore.

Park officials knew this case was more than the occasional dead fish due to the amount showing up on shore.

"We've picked up I know pretty close to 15-hundred dead fish in the lake," said Park superintendent Joe Kasuboski. "We have had some fish kills in some of the other lakes but it was due to golden algae and they knew what that cause was."

But in this case, the cause of the fish-kill at Lea Lake is unclear. Park officials have ruled out golden algae and any type of chemical or pesticide as the cause, mainly because not all of the fish are dying.

"This is only targeting one species of fish in the lake - the sunfish we have here," explained Kasuboski.

Camping and picnic areas surrounding Lea Lake are still open, however, the lake itself will remain closed to swimming until test results can prove that the water is once again safe. Results are expected by the end of the week.