Brevard County residents and beachgoers who were holding their breath that they wouldn’t face southwest Florida’s red tide fish kills and health problems are now literally doing so as they wait out the stinky nightmare.
The Florida Wildlife Commission officially confirmed the local presence of red tide Oct. 16, with high readings initially recorded at Pelican Beach Park in Satellite Beach and later in Cocoa Beach, where a massive fish kill occurred near Lori Wilson Park.
Having prepared for the outbreak, Keep Brevard Beautiful (KBB) coordinated with the county to get the dead fish removed quickly, creating staging areas for supplies like masks, gloves and trash bags in Satellite Beach, Melbourne Beach, Cocoa Beach and Port Canaveral. “So far, the worst seems to have been in the middle of Cocoa Beach, where KBB staff worked with about 70 volunteers today and about 30 yesterday. The good news is we got nearly all of the fish cleaned up by this afternoon,’’ said KBB Executive Director Tony Sasso.
Getting that break, or forecasting where and when red tide will hit or dissipate, is a complicated equation with no clear answers, researchers say.
The Florida Wildlife Commission Research Institute in St. Petersburg has gathered red tide data since 1953, building a red tide database containing 64,053 records provided by 78 collecting agencies. However, the data still are considered too sparse to address whether Karenia brevis blooms, the cause of red tide, have increased in frequency in the past 50 years.
Red tides occurred in Florida before human settlement with severe outbreaks recorded in the mid-1900s before the state’s coastlines were heavily developed. There is no direct, agreed-upon link between nutrient pollution and the frequency or initiation of red tides that form offshore; however, many believe once transported inshore, man-made nutrients could encourage red tide growth.
FWC has been monitoring the current bloom since it started in southwest Florida in November 2017. It spread to northwest Florida this September and the East Coast in October.
“Red tide blooms are transported by winds and currents and are patchy when they occur,’’ said Michelle Kerr, spokeswoman for FWC’s Research Institute. The fast-spreading deadly algae bloom is marching its way up the East Coast with only factors such as wind and weather to block its progress. Duration of the bloom depends on physical and biological conditions that influence its growth and persistence, such as sunlight, nutrients in the water and salinity, she said.
Red tides can last as little as a few weeks or longer than a year. They can even subside and then reoccur.
Red tide forecasts and positive water tests confirm the worst-case scenario seen on the Space Coast, at least for now, Sasso said.
“While the county and others have pretty good parts-per-liter numbers, we get input on where the fish are by eyes on the beach. With the weather and wind change, we’re hoping and expecting to get a break. We hope not, but may need more help,’’ he said.
