Dead Fish in Phoenix Canal. Arizona, sprawling Phoenix in particular, has a canal fetish. Here in a downtown portion of the Salt River Canal is a bunch of dying fish. Most of them are grass carp, stocked by the Salt River Project (SRP) to munch on aquatic weeds to help keep the canals clean. The canals are drained annually for maintennance and cleaning. Despite SRPs attempts to save fish, some inevitably die. Seems like a waste to me. There's a grocery store in the Chinese Cultural Center that sells live carp, along with live eels, crabs, frogs and other species of fish. Thats a lot of meals going to waste in this ditch!