Possible blue-green algae bloom reported at Rio marina on St. Lucie River

RIO — A possible blue-green algae bloom reported Monday at Outboards Only, a marina on the St. Lucie River that had a thick, nasty bloom in 2016.

The facility's boat basin "was covered with neon green at dead low tide" from about 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday, said Dave Schwartz, a marina worker. "You could see clouds of it coming in from the river. You could also see fish gulping for air, a couple of mullet and what looked like a black drum."

The bloom wasn't present when a TCPalm reporter visited the site about 5 p.m. Monday, but the water was a dirty brown with a slight greenish tinge.

Schwartz said the incoming tide had helped disperse the bloom.

"It's surprising because a week ago the river was as clean as I've ever seen it," Schwartz said. "It looked like the Bahamas. Then all of a sudden this mess came up today."

Blue-green algae has been reported in Lake Okeechobee for most of the summer, but a bloom in the St. Lucie River would be particularly surprising because there have been no discharges from Lake Okeechobee since spring.

Typically, the river doesn't get blooms unless the blue-green algae is released into the river from the lake.

More: Lake Okeechobee still toxic with microcystin

More: Scientists agree Lake O discharges cause St. Lucie algae blooms

That's why Mark Perry, executive director of the Florida Oceanographic Society in Stuart, doubts the algae at Outboards Only is microcystis, the blue-green algae that has wreaked environmental and economic havoc on and around the St. Lucie River estuary.

"There are lots of types of algaes that bloom in the river," Perry said, adding he suspects the bloom at Outboards Only is a type that thrives in brackish water, not the fresh water microcystis.

"The salinity in the middle estuary where that marina is has been higher than what microcystis lives in," he said.

Whatever kind of algae it is, Perry said, it can cause problems.

"Other species of algae can be toxic and can be harmful to wildlife," he said. "It's very important to find out what that stuff is so we know what we're dealing with."

Thick mats of foul-smelling blue green algae choked the Outboards Only boat basin in July 2016 at the height of Lake O discharges to the St. Lucie.

More: DEP unimpressed with algae cleanup at Outboards Only

Owner Phil Norman said the photos he saw of the algae Monday "looked like the very beginnings" of the 2016 bloom.

"It would come and go at first, a little here and a little there," Norman said. "But then it took over. I'm surprised it's here now."