Another waterway near 2016 Rio Olympic Village is suddenly full of dead fish

Silvia Izquierdo/AP

Dead fish are seen washed up on shore near Olympic Village.

Less than one year before the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil, fish are once again dying in large quantities near the Olympic venues in Rio and polluted waters are being blamed.

Over the weekend, "thousands of tilapia, sea bass and mullets" started washing up on the shore of Rio de Janeiro's Jacarepagua Lagoon, Brazilian environmentalist and biologist Mario Moscatelli told the Associated Press. This particular waterway will not be used for any events during the games. However, the lagoon is adjacent to the Olympic Park, and according to Moscatelli, the die-off could happen again next summer during the Olympics.

Moscatelli believes that the fish died because of insufficient oxygen in the water, blaming the condition on pollutants and untreated human waste that flows into the lagoon.

Silvia Izquierdo/AP

This is at least the third die-off of 2015. In April, two Rio waterways plagued by sewage and pollution problems were covered in dead fish.

Ricardo Moraes/Reuters

Athletes training in the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon.

Prior to that, in February, Guananbara Bay, which will host the Olympic sailing events, also had a die-off that killed thousands of fish.

Ricardo Moraes/Reuters

The Guanabara Bay die-off in February 2015.

One local photographer told the AP that these die-offs happen every year, "sometimes bigger, sometimes smaller," calling it "one more Brazilian shame."

Not everybody is convinced that pollution is to blame for the die-offs. According to the AP, some officials believe the fluctuations in oxygen levels are caused by changes in temperature from rain and high sea levels.