Catastrophic Red Tide in Florida (3 Pics)
Tampa Bay resident here and 7th generation Floridian. My family are commercial fishermen and we are working the kill cleanup. The algae that causes red tide is naturally always in our gulf and Atlantic waters at safe levels. A redtide bloom historically takes place 1-2 times a decade where warm waters and the right concentrated conditions would cause a mild fish kill in small geographic areas.
A catastrophic redtide bloom is caused by UNNATURAL nutrients that are introduced to the environment which acts as “miracle gro” for the algae to grow exponentially to these levels: Piney Point was a decommissioned phosphate (fertilizer) plant that had a sitting body of runoff water that was left untreated. It was thought the water would take 100 years to become safe to discharge. It’s only been sitting for 30. The infrastructure of the holding pond has been failing for over a decade and has most likely been leaking into the bay for several years. So when millions of gallons of miracle gro is added to a body of water that contains algae (a form of a plant) the algae has exploded and is extremely toxic to wildlife. Piney point absolutely contributed to this event. It is absolutely terrible. Dead manatees, dolphin, turtles, fish farther than the eye can see. There are other contributing factors: fertilizer run off from residential lawns, golf courses, resorts. Big agriculture like US Sugar that is completely unregulated and no mitigation to prevent fertilizer and pesticide runoff into lake ocheechobee.. the lake has to be discharged into the gulf and Atlantic when we have heavy rains, always leading to catastrophic redtide bloom events. All contributing factors to this environmental disaster. This is only the THIRD time my family (in 7 generations) has seen marine mammals affected by red tide. Ever. These type of events that have killed the marine mammals have all happened within the last 10 years. (Funny that’s when piney point began to fail??)
Time for some immediate change. From all of us. This is preventable, but our corrupt and greedy state will not push for change, because Florida is “corporate friendly.” Please, spread awareness. Demand change and accountability. We are witnessing a mass extinction event due to lack of action.
So to summarize: this is a state-wide problem and OF COURSE DESANTIS NEEDS TO RESPOND. We started seeing dead manatee, dolphin and turtles as early as 6/24 and he FINALLY just approved funding for cleanup.
When will we demand immediate action? While red tide is a natural event, catastrophic blooms like what we are experiencing is preventable through mandates and mitigation.