Florida-bound spring breakers expecting pristine beaches and clear blue seas may be in for a rude awakening along the southwest coast, where a toxic red tide has hit.
The toxic algae bloom – which occurs naturally in the Gulf of Mexico but worsens in the presence of nutrients like nitrogen – has left a trail of devastation, including beaches littered with dead fish and residents with burning eyes and air-starved lungs.
There’s no exact end in sight.
“I cannot say when it’s going to go away,” Bob Weisberg, the former director of the University of South Florida’s Ocean Circulation Lab, told the Tampa Bay Times. “It could very well be that this thing may linger.”
Every coastal county in southwest Florida saw toxic blooms during the past week, the newspaper reported.
Countless fish corpses have washed up on Gulf beaches, and many of the area’s landlubbers complain of nagging coughs and sneezing.
Sarasota and Pinellas counties have been hit hardest, the Tampa Bay Times reported.
People should not swim through or near red tide waters, which can cause skin irritations, rashes, burning and sore eyes, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Those with asthma or lung disease shouldn’t even go onto the beach.
The bloom has already affected future events.
The organizers of the annual BeachFest in Indian Rocks Beach, Fla., announced they were canceling the festival even though it’s more than a month away.
“Red Tide is currently present on the beach and is forecasted to remain in the area in the weeks to come,” the Indian Rocks Beach Homeowners Association, which sponsors the event, said in a public letter. “It is unfortunate that [the festival] had to be canceled but it is the best decision in the interest of public health.”
Others were more succinct about the tide’s impact.
“It smells,” Michelle McCauley, a vacationer from Ohio, told the TV network 10 Tampa Bay this week. ” It’s fishy, but I’m holding up fine.”
“The first few days we were down here, we were coughing a little bit and the itchy throat,” Cheryl Hones, a visitor from Toronto, told WFLA-TV in Tampa. “We would rather have that than the snow, so it’s great being down here.”
Still, the explosion of microscopic algae that periodically strikes the Florida coast takes a toll – especially on the fish, eels, birds and other marine species it kills.
Since last Monday, workers have removed two tons of ocean debris – mostly dead fish – from Pinella County beaches, the Tampa Bay Times said. But other animals have succumbed as well, including a dead loggerhead sea turtle and a manatee found dead in Boca Ciega Bay.
Red tides can bloom all over the world. They most commonly hit the Gulf of Mexico between August and December, according to Smithsonian Magazine. But they can hit at other times as well.
Scientists are unsure what causes the microorganisms to prodigiously multiply at random, the Smithsonian noted.
But they sometimes occur after natural phenomenon – like unusually high water temperatures – or extreme weather like hurricanes or drought, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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