Florida's algae crisis: Lee Health to discuss water quality at its next board meeting

Amy Bennett Williams
The News-Press

Lee Health's board will discuss Southwest Florida's toxic algae crisis at its Thursday meeting.

A water quality workshop is the fourth agenda item of the board's regular meeting. Scheduled to speak first is Rae Ann Wessel, natural resource policy director of the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation. Following her are physicians Mary Beth Saunders, director of epidemiology, and Marilyn Kole, vice president of clinical transformation.

As the region works to come to grips with the ongoing consequences of a lingering red tide coupled with a blue-green algae (cyanobacteria) outbreak that began in June, such discussions are critically important, Wessel said. Lee Health is Florida's largest public health system, with more than 1 million patient visits annually.

More:Florida toxic algae a long-term health concern, according to scientists, researchers

She characterized her role in the meeting as teeing up the conversation. "Nothing political — just a fact-based overview to explain what has happened, where we are and where we go; this is not going to swept away."

Exposure to blue-green algae has been linked to neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and ALS, also called Lou Gehrig's disease, and Dr. Walter Bradley, a neurologist and chairman emeritus of the University of Miami School of Medicine’s department of neurology, has said there is also a strong link between the kind of toxins produced by the algae that fouled the Caloosahatchee River and nonalcoholic cirrhosis of the liver. The toxins can become airborne, Bradley said, and have been identified a mile from water sources.

Blue-green algae builds up on the surface at the canal behind Denise Clements' home in Cape Coral earlier this week. The algae has plagued the city for more than two months.

The scope of the potential health effects hit Wessel full force during environmental activist Erin Brockovich's October public meeting in Fort Myers.

"There were over 800 people who signed in, overflowing the pavilion on the river," Wessel said. "When (Brockovich) asked the question how many people have had health effects, a good half of that room raised their hands."

Wessel has had firsthand experience of feeling ill after algae exposure, during a late-summer period when she was regularly taking officials, politicians and reporters on boat trips to some of the most densely slimed sites in the region.

"It seemed like this constant stream," she said. "We were out there breathing it in, experiencing it. There was one Monday that I had gone out to do a blue-green algae bloom that was particularly intense; I had taken this reporter out, and he wanted me to lean over the dock, point to where it was worst."

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Cyanobacteria, known as toxic blue-green algae, can be seen in the water at the Admiralty Yacht Club off Coon Road in North Fort Myers.

Though she'd planned to attend a county commission meeting the following morning, "I woke up with my throat swollen shut. ... I was just achy. I couldn't focus my eyes. I had no voice, so obviously I couldn't go," Wessel said. "I couldn't even sit up and focus my eyes. I went to bed, and I slept for two days; I'm the person who sleeps like five hours a night."

But when she brought the exposure up to her physician, algae was not on her doctor's radar, nor was Wessel asked any intake or routine questions about whether she'd been near any harmful blooms.

Her hope is that Lee Health will begin to help exploring the possible links between exposure and illness.

"We really don't have the science on any of this yet," she said. "The public is going to their doctors or the emergency room or EMS with (complaints), but you have nothing tying that all together. ... Once we have a geographic distribution and reporting on toxins then we can start to connect the dots."

Neither Saunders nor Kole could speak to The News-Press before the meeting, hospital spokeswoman Pat Dolce said.

Cyanobacteria, known as toxic blue-green algae, can be seen in the water at the Admiralty Yacht Club off Coon Road in North Fort Myers.

More:Water quality, management are top environmental issues for Southwest Florida in 2019

If you go

Lee Health's board meeting is at noon Thursday in the Gulf Coast Medical Center boardroom in the medical office building, 13685 Doctors Way, Fort Myers. Public Input is limited to three minutes and a “Request to Address the Board of Directors” card must be completed and submitted to staff before the meeting. Only agenda items will be permitted. Information: 239-343-1500.