Mild weather and clear skies typically mean good business for Fernando Ontiveros who, along with his wife Dina Rulli, owns SUP Eco Adventures, offering stand-up paddleboard tours out of Melbourne Beach.
But when red tide appeared on the east coast of Florida – along with the subsequent fish kills across Brevard’s beaches – the phone stopped ringing, during a time of year usually robust with reservations.
“It drove away a lot of business,” Ontiveros said. “We still have not recovered.”
But help may be available.
On Oct. 31, Gov. Rick Scott announced that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) will receive $765,000 to fund additional scientists and equipment aimed at reducing the impact of red tide. In addition, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) has set aside $1.3 million in grant funding for coastal communities “to mitigate the impacts of red tide.” Of that, about $75,000 is being funneled to Brevard County.
“The $75,000 we have received will go toward beach cleanup and our contract with Keep Brevard Beautiful, which has spearheaded the cleanup of dead fish from our impacted beaches,” said Brevard County spokesman Don Walker. “We were told today that additional monies are available, so we may be receiving more in the days and weeks ahead.”
In addition, $500,000 was included for VISIT FLORIDA to establish an emergency grant program related to tourism.
Sara Sowerby, communications manager of VISIT FLORIDA, said with that money they have created the Tourism Recovery Grant Program for Red Tide, which provides financial assistance for tourism development boards to execute marketing programs through advertising, direct mail, brochure production, website development, and other related projects and programs.
“Local tourism businesses in the impacted counties are encouraged to work with their local tourism development boards to be included in the marketing efforts,” Sowerby said. “To date, VISIT FLORIDA has received nine applications and awarded six grants for a total of $445,000. The three applications currently under review are valued at $157,487.15.”
Tiffany Vause, director of communications and external affairs for the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity, said that at Gov. Scott’s request, the Small Business Administration is offering disaster assistance in the form of the Economic Injury Disaster Loan to businesses in 17 counties.
“As impacts from the events continue to be felt, we are encouraging businesses to utilize the business damage assessment survey found at FloridaDisaster.biz,” Vause said.
Raed Alshaibi, hotel manager for both the Hilton Melbourne Beach Oceanfront and the Doubletree Suites by Hilton Hotel, found himself in another role a few weeks ago as he and other members of his staff walked the beaches adjacent to the hotels, removing hundreds of dead fish. Along the way, his group ran into a group of volunteers, including congressional candidate Sanjay Patel, who agreed to assist him; as a thank you, Alshaibi bought them lunch.
He said the effects of red tide caused a 15 percent to 25 percent drop in reservations. “People cannot afford to be sitting and looking at dead fish,” Alshaibi said. “I’m glad it’s over, people are coming back. Folks are enjoying the beach, even fishing. The weather is great, and we expect the weekend to sell out.”
Bonnie King, Office of Tourism deputy director and interim executive director, said she is aware that some hotels have experienced cancelled visits due to the red tide.
“Keep Brevard Beautiful is working hard to clean up the beaches. We continue to actively monitor putting eyes on target to ensure we stay ahead of the situation,” King said. “We have tremendous coordination from across all county staff with a unified goal of informing, educating and proactively cleaning our beaches.”
Bryan Bobbitt, deputy executive director of Keep Brevard Beautiful, said that he’s thankful more than 100 people came out over several days to assist in the cleanup efforts that included the removal of about ten tons of dead fish.
That’s about 20,000 pounds of dead fish for anyone keeping score.
“The volunteers have been wonderful, and I couldn’t ask for more,” Bobbitt said.
“I’m so grateful to the KBB staff. They have performed amazingly well through all this and fingers crossed, we may see an end here shortly.”
“Today I have noticed that this red tide seems to be subsiding and I even went to the beach area of Spessard Holland, and the beach area seemed to look clear of the fish death,” Lizardi said.
Gina Solow and her family actually had to leave their home in Melbourne Beach for several days when red tide initially hit the area.
“We were in my back yard for only a few minutes and it was hard to breathe without coughing. My dog started sneezing, coughing and foaming at the mouth and refused to go outside after that,” Solow said.
“We ended up going to Orlando from Wednesday to Sunday. Thankfully it is better now.”