Rotting fish turning up on Brevard County beaches for weeks may persist for an indefinite time because of the voracious nature of red tide, state authorities said Wednesday.
“There’s a lot of speculation and hypothesis that folks have put out there and a lot of misinformation,” said Eric Sutton, executive director of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“What I can tell you is that red tide is opportunistic,” Sutton said shortly after a briefing in Palm Bay for local government officials on the marine disaster striking both sides of the state. “When it begins well offshore, it can utilize not only nutrients in the water but it can also photosynthesize. It is a really successful algae.”
Volunteers turning out for the group Keep Brevard Beautiful have been filling large dumpsters with dead fish shoveled off beaches along the south end of the county.
State authorities on Wednesday announced a budget increase of $765,000 for research on red tide. The state also is writing $1.3 million in checks for cleanups along South and Central Florida coastlines.
Brevard and other counties hugging the coastal Indian River Lagoon have been pummeled in recent years by a succession of harmful-algae invasions, including those referred to as green slime and brown tide.
Red tide “has been another algal blow to our community,” said Leesa Souto, executive director or Marine Resources Council, which advocates restoration of the Indian River. “What color toxic tide will we get next?”
The red tide along south Brevard resembles conditions along Florida’s southwestern coast, including along the Fort Myers area, where the toxic algae has lingered for more than a year.
The Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission consistently has characterized red tide as an outbreak of toxic algae in ocean waters that occurs naturally. But environmental advocates and some scientists are pushing for further research to document whether coastal pollution is nourishing red tide into unnaturally intense levels.
Green-slime versions of harmful algae have been definitively tied to pollution from septic and sewage systems and from farm and landscape fertilizers.
“Red tide is a naturally occurring event and it’s been in our waters forever,” said Laurilee Thompson, co-owner of Dixie Crossroads restaurant in Titusville and a member of the Brevard County Tourist Development Council. “What’s not natural is that we are fertilizing it. We are compounding the problem and extending its life by feeding it. “
Sutton said red tides are relatively rare along Florida’s east coast, with the last one of significance appearing more than a decade ago. He said the algae was carried from the Gulf of Mexico by the Gulf Stream and other currents to the east coast.
“The good news typically is that it will be transient and we don’t expect that it will persist, but there is no way of saying that for sure,” Sutton said.
Sutton said relief for the east coast would come with a steady wind out of the west, which would push red tide away from Brevard County.
Unfortunately, he said, that same wind would carry red tide closer to beaches of southwest Florida.
After many questions about whether Florida’s pollution was contributing to more intense red tides, Drew Bartlett, deputy secretary at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, responded that sewage and fertilizer pollution, referred to as nutrient pollution, is an overarching challenge.
“While we try to figure out the science behind red tide, I think it’s also important to note that we need to control excess nutrients from getting into Florida waterways,” Bartlett said.
Kate Hubbard, a scientist with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, said the red tide tormenting the west coast is the fifth most long-lasting since tracking began in the late 1950s.
Hubbard said also that red tide tolerates a wide range of temperatures, salinity levels and seasonal conditions.
Matt Upton, president of the Brevard-based Roffer’s Ocean Fishing Forecasting Service, has been tracking movements of red tide along the east coast through satellite images.
“A lot of it is weather related,” Upton said. “When the winds shift to out of the east and the north, you have a better chance of feeling the effects on land. Hopefully, we are near the end of it for the east coast but time will tell.”
kspear@orlandosentinel.com
