Rehoboth Beach Public Works Department employees Al Brown (left) and Bob Painter netted and bagged thousands of dead fish from the banks of Silver Lake.

John Hughes, right, secretary of Delaware’s Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control and a resident of Rehoboth Beach, briefs Mayor Sam Cooper (left) and Rehoboth Beach Public Works Department Director Milbourn Craig about the fish kill.

A large mouth bass, gasping for oxygen, surfaces near a dead gizzard shad.

A dozen or so gizzard shad lie dead on the surface of Silver Lake’s shoreline edge.

Members of Rehoboth Beach Volunteer Fire Company, with Chief Bryon Burton manning the gun, used their mini-pumper to draft water from the northwestern end of Silver Lake and return it in an arching spray to help reoxygenate the water.   DNREC Secretary John Hughes said this method has been used at other stressed waters in Delaware, such as Derby Pond and Garrisons Lake, to save populations of fish struggling in depleted oxygen conditions.