By admin 
MINNEAPOLIS – That stink in St. Paul’s Como Park neighborhood last weekend? It wasn’t the blooming corpse flower in the conservatory.
About 10,000 crappies and bluegill sunfish died in Como Lake last week.
The die-off was the result of low oxygen in the water, according to the Capitol Region Watershed District, which oversees water quality in the area, including at Como. Such die-offs are natural, said Britta Belden, the watershed district’s monitoring and research division manager.
“When you have a rapid warming event of the water, the oxygen drops suddenly and that can cause stress to the fish,” Belden said. “That’s common. That happens this time of year.”
Before the water warmed up, oxygen saturation was high, Belden said, around 10 milligrams per liter, but that level dropped to zero milligrams per liter as the lake got warmer, and stressed the smaller fish. Crappies are particularly susceptible to stress from low oxygen, she said.
The weather also was likely to blame for about 150 fish dying last week in Lake Nokomis in Minneapolis, according to the park board.
In St. Paul, wind had blown fish carcasses near the popular Como Pavilion, near the north side of the lake.
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A contractor removed thousands of dead fish from the lake on Friday near the pavilion and Duck Point. But Belden said the watershed district typically does not remove dead fish from the water because die-offs are a natural process, so about half of the dead fish were left to decompose in the water.
Como Lake has been on the state’s list of impaired waterways since 1998, with the Department of Natural Resources noting mercury in fish, chloride from road salt and phosphorus from surrounding lawns, but water quality is improving.
Pollutants were not to blame for the fish die-off, Belden said.
“These individual species’ populations do boom and bust in the lake. This is natural,” Belden said, though she added climate change and hotter summers could make such die-offs a more frequent occurrence.
People can help keep the lake healthy by removing leaves and pet waste from their lawns and keeping storm drains clear, she said. “The best we can do is continue to support the lake and ecosystem health.”
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This story was originally published June 10, 2026 at 2:43 AM.