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The rain will most likely make it worse, as they’ll have to dump more water from the lake.
 
Posts: 21335 | Registered: June 12, 2005Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lighten up and laugh
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Red tide levels across Southwest Florida are falling in the wake of Tropical Storm Gordon, which brought heavy offshore winds that pushed the bloom away from beaches.

"The samples I looked at are way down in concentration," said Rick Bartleson, a water quality scientist with the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation. "They were around 40 million cells per liter last Friday, and now they're down to 40,000 cells at Beach Access 1. Algiers on Saturday was 41 million, and in three days it went down to 200,000. That's basically a 99 percent drop."

Some Sanibel areas have tested below 1 million cells per liter for the first time in two months, which could be a sign that the bloom has moved offshore or is beginning to break up.

Red tide is a harmful algal bloom that can sicken or even kill local wildlife. It also causes respiratory issues in humans and other animals. Wochit

More: Dead zone conditions being reported in Gulf of Mexico due to red tide

More: Rescue network saves sick manatees, sea turtles from toxic red tide

Red tide was barely detectable this week in Collier County waters and fluctuating between background concentrations and 1 million cells per liter in Lee, according to a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission report.

The National Weather Service also dropped its hazardous beach conditions advisory for several Southwest Florida counties.

The bloom is patchy but still stretches from the Tampa Bay area to around the Collier County line.

"Wind is helping disperse red tide cells and sending red tide concentrations offshore," Bartleson said. "They're getting disturbed. The wind can break up the cells, which are fragile and can rupture from too much turbulence."

Scenes from a fish kill on Wednesday 8/22/2018 morning at the last public parking area before South Seas Island Resort on Captiva. A red tide bloom in the waters off the coast Southwest Florida is killing and affecting marine life. Fluctuations in water quality and beach conditions can change on a daily to almost an hourly basis. Andrew West/The News-Press

Onshore winds pushed the bloom to coastal areas in June, and Southwest Florida beaches have been largely void of humans and filled with dead wildlife since.

Counts since June have largely been at 1 million cells per liter and higher, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission records.

Fish kills and breathing irritation in humans can start when counts reach 10,000 cells per liter, according to FWC.

More: Unusual marine mammal event prompts federal agency to open investigation over red tide dolphin deaths

More: On Labor Day, rain keeps crowds away from beach despite lessening levels of red tide

Bartleson said counts in Pine Island Sound and San Carlos Bay may stay elevated because the barrier islands helped hold some of that water in the bays.

Conditions in Collier were already improving before Tropical Storm Gordon hit.

"The easterly winds we had a week prior to Tropical Storm Gordon had already helped minimize impacts at the beaches," said Rhonda Watkins, an environmental specialist for Collier, in an email. "Bloom concentrations had already dropped to zero at all but one of our Collier County beaches prior to the storm. We won’t know if the storm had any further impact until we get results back."

Giant fish flopped out of the truck onto the ground from this load that was brought from a few of the beaches on Sanibel Island. The amounts of fish and ocean creatures being brought in are slowing down, but the beaches are still being cleaned up. The county and islands have collected millions of pounds of fish and sea creatures after a large Red Tide outbreak. Where does it go in the end? The landfill. Once the ocean creatures are collected from the beaches, they are brought to the landfill, mixed with other trash, and then burned. Andrea Melendez/The News-Press/USA Today

Bob Wasno, a Florida Gulf Coast University professor and researcher, said this is the worst red tide he's seen in three decades.

"For the past 30 years and the red tide I’ve seen nothing has been this far ranging and devastating," Wasno said. "I’ve never seen it this far before. Many of the episodes that I’ve seen in the past only lasted a few weeks."

A University of South Florida College of Marine Science model shows the bloom moving out of the bays and to the north over the next three days.

That would help the situation even more for Lee.

"The water was very red, and it looks much more clear now," Bartleson said.


https://www.news-press.com/sto...-florida/1200336002/
 
Posts: 7934 | Registered: September 29, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Nature is full of
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How deep down does a hurricane stir things up? How long will it take for the rest of the Gulf to encroach upon the dead zones and restore the sea life?

_________________________________________________________

https://www.news-press.com/sto...eechobee/1200206002/

Red tide causing dead zone conditions in Gulf of Mexico
Chad Gillis, Fort Myers News-Press Published 12:03 p.m. ET Sept. 5, 2018 | Updated 5:42 a.m. ET Sept. 6, 2018

A combination of rotting fish and algae blanketing the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico is creating a dead zone off Southwest Florida, two scientists say.

"Nothing is what we saw," said Florida Gulf Coast University researcher and professor Bob Wasno, who dived in the Gulf recently. "We went out to Edison reef, and everything was dead. For the hour-dive we did, we saw three snapper and three porkfish, and quite frankly they looked pretty lost."

Wasno said everything from sand dollars to sea urchins and coral are dead offshore.

Red tide has enveloped the area since October but has been particularly bad this summer.


The county and islands have collected millions of pounds of fish and sea creatures after a large Red Tide outbreak. Where does it go in the end? Fort Myers News-Press

Millions of pounds of fish and sea life have been collected from Lee County beaches and shorelines in the past several weeks.

Hundreds of sea turtles, dozens of manatees and dolphins and even a whale shark have been recovered from local beaches this summer.

The dead animals are starting to pile up on the sea floor.

"The whole floor of the reef site was covered in a rose-colored flocculate; it just looks like snot across the bottom," Wasno said.

Three giant fish flopped out of the truck onto the ground from this load that was brought from a few of the beaches on Sanibel Island. The amounts of fish and ocean creatures being brought in are slowing down, but the beaches are still being cleaned up. The county and islands have collected millions of pounds of fish and sea creatures after a large Red Tide outbreak. Where does it go in the end? The landfill. Once the ocean creatures are collected from the beaches, they are brought to the landfill, mixed with other trash, and then burned. Andrea Melendez/The News-Press/USA Today
A dead zone is an area of water with oxygen levels too low to support most marine life. It's basically an area where the marine food chain has stopped working.

"There are some pockets of hypoxic (or anoxic) conditions out there," Wasno said. "The algae dies, and the fish die, and the process of decomposition takes up a lot of oxygen. That’s most likely the reason behind these hypoxic zones. They get you coming and going. First comes the red tide and then the hypoxia."

Hypoxia refers to very low oxygen, and apoxia to the absence of oxygen.

A similar but much larger dead zone exists off the coast of Louisiana in the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Although local beaches have at times been blanketed with dead wildlife, that's only a fraction of what is being killed by the massive red tide.

The rest is either floating at the surface offshore or is at the bottom of the Gulf.

And the dead sea life, along with the algae, is causing even more death.

"The bloom is killing things, and as they decompose on the bottom they're taking up oxygen," said Rick Bartleson, a water quality scientist with the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation. "That's typical dead zone conditions."

Bartleson said he and others measured an area about 25 square miles that showed hypoxic, or dead zone, conditions.

"Thursday we were southwest of Sanibel, and we found anoxia from 30 feet to about 20 feet, so that's 10 feet of depth with no oxygen on the bottom," Bartleson said.

Typically water from the bottom would mix with the upper layers, which oxygenates that water.

But heavy releases from Lake Okeechobee and runoff after events like Tropical Storm Gordon are keeping the layers from separating because fresh and saltwater don't mix well.

"The surface water is fresher," Bartleson said. "A lot of freshwater goes out into the Gulf, and that's increasing the stratification of the water, so there's not a lot mixing."

Counts along the Southwest Florida coast have ranged from natural background conditions to 1 million cells per liter and higher.

Fish kills and breathing irritation in humans can start when levels reach 10,000 cells per liter, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Wasno said that although local beaches are much cleaner than they've been in recent weeks, the red tide is lurking offshore.

A change in the weather could push the red tide back onshore, and the dead wildlife with it.

"Eight to 20 miles offshore it was just dead fish littering the surface, of all kinds of makes and models," Wasno said. "So with the weather we’ve had the last couple of days, we’re not seeing the dead fish (on the beaches), but that doesn’t mean they're not out there."
 
Posts: 6273 | Registered: March 24, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Stangosaurus Rex
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quote:
Originally posted by deepocean:
quote:
Originally posted by Tommydogg:
I was in Sarasota last Thursday and Friday. The air is nasty and vile. The water is indescribable. I was happy to come back to the East coast where our beaches are closed too for green and blue algae. Our waterways are doomed for the present.


I'm amazed people there put up with this. I understand, what can they do about it, but if it is that bad, I would suspect people would be more and more vocal as time goes on.


People are pretty vocal, and with the midterm elections coming up, things will get pretty vocal! Red tide, algae, supporting of Donald Trump or not supporting Donald Trump will be the focus.


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Beth Greene
 
Posts: 7840 | Location: South Florida | Registered: January 09, 2011Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lighten up and laugh
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It looks like it knocked it down a bit. Fingers crossed the releases don't push it back the other way.



 
Posts: 7934 | Registered: September 29, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Loves His Wife
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Is it safe to say this is now cleared up? I haven’t heard any recent talk of this. I’m headed to Bonita Springs soon and am wondering about the water conditions in the region.



I am not BIPOLAR. I don't even like bears.


 
Posts: 12930 | Location: Western WI | Registered: January 05, 2009Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Savor the limelight
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Yes. Took our boat to Cayo Costa last weekend.
 
Posts: 10822 | Location: SWFL | Registered: October 10, 2007Reply With QuoteReport This Post
Lighten up and laugh
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It has been clear for a few weeks. Fingers crossed they don't get a ton of rain this spring.
 
Posts: 7934 | Registered: September 29, 2008Reply With QuoteReport This Post
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