Stubborn Red Tide lives on
The marine bloom's capricious nature this year has people wondering when and if it will ever leave.
By GRAHAM BRINK
Published August 9, 2005
ST. PETERSBURG - The Red Tide that has killed thousands of fish and stunk up area beaches this summer might not go away for some time.
Or it could disappear overnight.
Therein lies the frustration for tourists, residents, beach area businesses and even Red Tide researchers.
"It's impossible to accurately forecast when Red Tide will go away," said Jeremy Lake, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute. "(This year) it's sloshing back and forth."
The fish-killing marine bloom produces a toxin that affects the central nervous systems of fish and sea mammals. In people, it can cause skin and eye irritation, coughing and sneezing.
Researchers had hoped that Hurricane Dennis would break this year's bloom apart. Instead, the storm pushed Red Tide further up Tampa Bay than it had been since the 1970s.
Red Tide is a natural occurence that continues to perplex researchers. No one knows why it breaks out or why it sticks around some years and not others.
Lake has heard rumblings that the state's decision to allow treated fertilizer waste to be dumped into Bishop's Harbor, an aquatic preserve at the mouth of Tampa Bay, has played some role in this year's outbreak.
Tests, though, have not revealed any Red Tide around the dumping ground this summer, Lake said.
"It's one of the areas that has not been affected at all," he said.
The blooms can move quickly, making it hard to pinpoint in advance exactly where dead fish are likely to appear.
Last week, for instance, measurements near Boca Grande Pass near Fort Myers showed very low levels Thursday. Then, Friday, it recorded more than 1-million per liter - a very high reading.
Even a low or zero reading near a beach does not mean dead fish won't wash up. Red Tide blooms can kill fish and other marine life miles offshore. The wind or currents can push the mass of dead fish onto the beaches.
The odor that results is the rotting fish, not the Red Tide, which does not have much of an odor, Lake said.
This year's Red Tide broke out in January, first hitting the gulf beaches in February. Its effects have been most noticeable since June.
This Red Tide has stuck around longer than average, though its duration is not unprecedented. Lake remembered one Red Tide that lingered for 18 months.
In 1974, workers for the city of St. Petersburg picked up more than 2,000 tons of dead fish and buried hundreds of tons more on the beaches. An outbreak three years earlier was so bad that area politicians sought federal aid to help with clean up costs.
The 1950s saw some particularly severe Red Tide outbreaks, too. And the one that formed in the winter of 1946 and lasted well into 1947 is considered the most severe outbreak on record in Florida. Millions of fish died from the Florida Keys to Tarpon Springs.
But all that is little solace for area beach towns dealing with this year's Red Tide.
"I've been here for 30 years and I've never seen it this bad," said Madeira Beach Community Services director Mike Maxemow. He says he was lucky this weekend, as the winds and currents spared his town's beach.
Beach towns to the north were not so lucky.
"There was a super lot of fish," said Randy Schwab, Indian Rocks Beach public works supervisor. He said his two crews collected an estimated 7 cubic yards of dead fish weighing more than a ton.
Other nearby towns had similar piles of dead fish rotting on their shorelines. Work crews in Indian Shores and Belleair Beach reported a variety of dead fish, including a 4-foot-long tarpon, a 30-pound snook, a 200-pound dolphin and several sea turtles.
--Times correspondent Sheila Mullane Estrada contributed to this report.