Red Tide this year ?
 

Hi,
Has anyone seen or heard of Red Tide reports on the gulf coast this year

Yesterday’s 23rd August very very low no fish kill safe swimming and no advisory’s in place currently
Haven’t=checked to day

Whilst no major reports, per last year's carnage (red tide's a few miles out), advisories are stay out of the water, unseen toxins became present once the Army Corp of Engineers began releasing Lake O algae laden waters in July.

Whilst there's currently no red tide (usually hits Gulf shores atween Nov to Feb), bear in mind Lake O is the final destination for a plethora of toxins, pesticides, human and animal waste, everything that runs down from north Fl ends up in Lake O where it ferments prior to release when Lake O reaches height limits. General release direction is West (brown stuff hit the fan re the East being affected last year too), think Mar-a-Lago!

The Army Corps of Engineers are regularly sued in the US, this year is no different with conservationists and even US Sugar lawyers sharpening their quills over the handling of SW Fl water. In June, courts rejected a lawsuit alleging Army CofE management of water flow from Lake O into the Caloosahatchee River caused pollution problems in the SW Fla waterway. It might have been an easy reject... Court; did you release filthy, toxin laden water from Lake O which bumped into red tide, causing cyanobacteria and a devastating ecological disaster? Yes. Why? Cos the Gov says we have to when the level gets too high. Nowt but right, case dismissed.

Sadly water toxins affect many areas. A trio of dogs recently died in NC after swimming in a pond with toxic cyanobacteria (blue/green) algae.

I’m by no means scaremongering and certainly have no expertise in this area but we thought it was a bit smelly. We’ve never noticed this before on AMI so we did wonder if it might be developing.
We still went in as there were plenty of others in the water.
Sadly it wasn’t crystal clear this trip but the weather had been awful before we arrived there

Chris, where can I find these advisories, please?
They seem at odds with the latest reports from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
( https://myfwc.com/research/redtide/statewide/ ) and the Mote Aquarium (https://visitbeaches.org/#)

We have just come back from Marco island today. Lovely sea and beaches with no mention of red tide. This place is still recovering from Hurricane Irma but no mention of the red tide. We chartered a fishing boat, visited beaches and went kayaking. X

Hi John, surprisingly the first link you post states K. brevis (red tide) was observed at background to very low concentrations in Sarasota County, as I recently read it was 'miles out' that link intimates red tide may be further inland.

Re the beaches, I didn't make comment in my post as I'm not monitoring. The info re water quality is coming from SW Fl Clean Water Activists, who regularly test various waters, and have been fighting Lake O discharges for a few years, plus island commercial fishermen/locals out boating keep residents water issues informed. The advisory to avoid swimming has been in place since last year, it's only an advisory, people can do as they wish, but be aware Lake O has been discharging since July.

Chris, thanks for the reply. If I understand it correctly, there are no official advisories in force, only advisories from an activist group and only 1 recorded instance at very low levels. We need to keep things in proportion.

I kept the water issue in proportion John, indeed resident reports are red tide is miles out, whereas, in Sarasota County, red tide was coastal observed at background to very low concentrations, which may explain some of Vanillapod's AMI experience.

From those experienced in SW Fl waters (commercial fishermen et al., what's left of them after 2018), whilst rivers/canals are nowhere near as bad as last year, since 2019 Lake O discharges began algae quickly appeared, which isn't difficult to understand based on the amount of Fl run-off entering/fermenting in Lake O. There's a push to ban Roundup/phosphate variants as last years phosphate level was extremely high. Unfortunately SW Fl waters have deteriorated significantly in the 25+ years we've been visiting... bar plodging from boat to land we no longer fully enter SW Fl waters.

We spend 10days in AMI and moved to Naples on the 9th August.
No mention or sight of red Tide thankfully.
Hope all is ok for your trip