Workers cleared the last of the dead fish from Piedmont Park early Tuesday, and the smell they'd left behind was dissipating as the lunch-time crowd arrived.
The odor that has plagued the area was caused by a fish die-off in Lake Clara Meer.
"It's been going on for several days," said Kyle Rose, who frequently walks in the park. "It is disgusting."
Rose used to live by a lake in Cleveland and said fish die-offs are annual problems there and usually only last a week.
Estate Management Services, the company that manages the lake for the city parks department, said last week's big drop in temperatures caused algae to bloom, depriving certain fish of oxygen, Channel 2 Action News reported. The city, however, is still waiting for the official report from the company, said Sharon Davis, spokeswoman for the City of Atlanta.
Park patrons were quick to notice.
“It’s just a quick dead fishy smell,” Courtney Redmon told Channel 2. “It just comes and goes.”
Currently, workers are treating the water to try and figure out exactly what happened in the lake.
A similar phenomenon occurred about two years ago, when Piedmont was overwhelmed with the odor of dead fish just days before a Paul McCartney concert at the park. The Piedmont Park Conservancy got volunteers to help scoop up the fish.
"I cannot tell you how many fish died over the weekend but it is nothing in comparison to 2009,” Davis said.
Staff writer David Ibata contributed to this report.
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