Florida is all clear of red tide. I recieved this from FWRI today:
EAST COAST
Karenia brevis, the Florida red tide organism, was not detected in water samples collected this week alongshore of Brevard County.
NORTHWEST COAST
Karenia brevis, the Florida red tide organism, was not detected in water samples collected this week alongshore of Okaloosa and Walton counties or offshore of Levy and Citrus counties.
SOUTHWEST COAST
Karenia brevis, the Florida red tide organism, was not detected in water samples collected this week alongshore between Pinellas and Collier counties or offshore of Pinellas County. Additional samples collected late last week south of Marathon in the Florida Keys (Monroe County) also contained no K. brevis.
This is indeed great news, as it means there’s no red tide detected anywhere in Florida at the moment.
The rainy season is coming so it would be nice to see the many local fertilizer ordinances are going to have an impact. Let’s hope so. We’re betting that a lot of the nutrients are coming from further up stream, but the homeowners have been a significant contributor in the past.
The patchy red tide down in Monroe County of the Florida Keys has spread but still isn’t effecting much area. Now it’s on the north side and the south side the southernmost keys.
Here’s a little map highlighting the areas effected:
As of the 17th of December no one has reported any fish kills or respiratory distress, but the Sarasota County Health Dept has reported low concentrations of the Red Tide organism, Karenia Brevis.
Locals know the weather reports have the winds staying strong. If the red tide intensifies a bit, it could be quite unpleasant in Venice Florida. Venice Florida is a small town in between the two points mentioned above on the west coast of Florida.
Red tide activity is on the increase in the Gulf of Mexico. The red tide bloom in Texas stretches as far as 200 miles off shore. There’s a large fish kill involved there. Florida also has a large fish kill from a red tide bloom. It’s right off the coast of Sanibel Island and a smaller fish kill is already effecting it’s beaches.
The red tide there is strengthening and enlarging although it’s unknown how far off shore it stretches.
This is kinda troubling folks, the red tide bloom in Texas and the red tide bloom in southwestern Florida have Not been mitigated by the cold front like everyone expected. Right now both of these red tides will increase in size or strength after the weather comes back? Well that remains to be seen, but it sometimes does. In fact it wasn’t too long ago that Florida had a red tide that lasted several years. Right now the red tide report details the mostly broken up red tide. However it’s based mostly on reports from FWRI, which is notorious for it’s efforts to downplay red tide and it’s effects. For instance, in their latest rounds of tests, they didn’t take samples from the area off of the Ft Myers / Naples Florida area that had a large and rapidly growing red tide bloom just last week. No samples taken, thus no red tide found. See how that works? It also has a contaminating effect on historical red tide tide data, but that’s a story for another time.
The red tide is back in Florida. There’s a large bloom off the coast of the Ft. Myers and Naples areas of Southwest Florida. This harmful algal bloom (K. Brevis) is moderately sever in spots. After a little more rain and unseasonably warm weather it sadly looks like it’ll get worse.
Sarasota bay (at the mouth) has a mild red tide bloom. Red tide was also detected several miles to the Northwest in open water.
For those of you in the St Petersburg FL area (Reddington Beach specifically), the discolored water isn’t red tide it’s a bloom of the cyanobacterium Trichodesmium erythraeum, according to FWRI. Not that that’s any relief, this Algal bloom too can be toxic to humans.
Look for more information on these blooms later. As always feel free to leave comments below with your story and/or reports of more locales that are effected that haven’t been covered here.
Florida Citizens and visitors have been using the report red tide (thanks!) page to tell us about what they thought was a large red tide bloom along the east coast of Florida. Well Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Research Institute begs to differ.
Algae
They say it’s a less lethal “diatom” bloom. I’m not sure if they are purposely trying to confuse you or they are trying to be scientifically accurate. But it’s an algae bloom folks.
Sometimes I regret not going with my instinct. When I first heard about a fish kill in the Myakka river, and realized that it was right after a moderate rain, my instinct said red tide or blue green algae was to blame. I pass by the Myakka river frequently in my travels and I had been noticing that it had a lot of regular algae in it.
All that is just guess work though and not science. Combine that with the incredible demands on my time lately, and I decided not to post anything.
Well it turned out I was right, but I still don’t regret posting my initial thoughts. I should have posted that it was a fish kill, and the conditions were appropriate for an algae bloom.
It still hasn’t been confirmed yet, but it appears there are some waters effected with Florida Red Tide down in the Ft. Myers area.
A nice rain after a long dry spell is often the trigger for a red tide bloom in Florida. Ft. Myers is especially susceptible because of the high amounts of fertilizers in the Caloosahatchee River. This is due to it’s proximity in the “river of Grass” that is Florida as well as all the farms along the Caloosahatchee water shed.
The only thing really working in Ft. Myers favor right now is the fact that it wasn’t a big rain.
At the moment almost all of Florida is free of red tide blooms. The weather has a lot to do with this as the cold we’ve been having is extremely unfavorable to red tide bloom development. Still, even with the cold there are small amounts of red tide in two locations at the moment.
One small and very weak red tide bloom northwest of Tarpon springs on the west coast and a larger but still very weak red tide bloom along the east coast in Brevard county’s Mosquito Lagoon area. Once a bloom infects a lagoon or bay it can be quite hard to get rid of it.
4 Dead dolphins washed ashore in Volusa county recently. Red Tide exposure hasn’t been confirmed yet by the scientist at Hubbs-SeaWorld Research Institute in Orlando but it certainly appears as that at the moment as the area is afflicted by a sever red tide bloom at the moment and there non other immediately visible signs of trauma or Illness.
Sadly dozens of sea turtles have been found dead in the area as well.
History teaches us the birds will be next if this red tide bloom is mitigated (destroyed) promptly. Of course we don’t do that here in America for some reason.
Blue green algae bloom? Not Florida red tide? That’s correct. Blue green algae is actually a name commonly used to describe many types of algae. Although blue green algae is usually described as “non-toxic” This editor has seen cases of burn like rashes on the skin, nausea, respiratory distress etc linked to exposure to blue-green algae in the press before.
The Blue Green Algae’s potency toxicity depends upon which exact species it is. “Some species of cyanobacteria produce neurotoxins, hepatotoxins, cytotoxins, and endotoxins, making them dangerous to animals and humans. Several cases of human poisoning have been documented but a lack of knowledge prevents an accurate assessment of the risks.”
The red tide in northern Florida is still hanging on. According to Jacksonville.com
“St. Johns, Flagler counties are affected most; Jacksonville Beach still has some effects.” and “a state agency reported higher levels of red tide off the Northeast Florida coast Friday, beach officials had mixed views this week about when the irritant would leave.
The state Fish and Wildlife Research Institute confirmed the tide remains in the area, in increasing levels in some areas. “
“fish kill reports have been received from St. Johns and Flagler counties. Highest impacts are currently occurring along the coasts of St. Johns and Flagler counties.”
I too have been receiving reports of bad red tide and fish kills in the area, Crescent Beach, St. Augustine Beach and the Matanzas Inlet specifically.
While some beaches and other areas are being currently being reported as all clear for red tide, expierence teaches me that if it’s in the area, there’s a good chance it’ll spread to those areas soon.
It depends a lot on the weather, A heavy rain often cause a bloom to increase in size and intensity. Although sometimes a few days of cloudiness, low pressure, cool temps, will cool the water enough to make the conditions unfavorable for a red tide bloom. And things are starting to cool off out there in the Gulf.
The recent red tide bloom off the northwest coast of Florida is effecting Alabama as well. Evidently they’ve been directly effected by either the same Florida red tide bloom or a new red tide bloom. According to Everything Alabama:
“Oyster beds in Bon Secour Bay were closed Tuesday after tests by the Alabama Department of Public Health revealed the presence of the organism that causes red tide.
The organism builds up in oysters as they filter water, making them unsafe to eat, sometimes for weeks after the red tide is gone.
Fish kills reported along the Gulf beaches between the Florida line and Fort Morgan over the last few days were also attributed to the red tide bloom, according to state officials.
Those officials believe the red tide organisms likely blew in from Florida waters or from offshore waters south of Alabama.
While red tide levels along the Gulf beaches Tuesday were high enough to cause minor throat irritation in people exposed to sea mist at the water’s edge, a few places, such as Cotton Bayou, experienced much higher levels over the last few days, state tests showed. “
There’s a very large red tide bloom ranging from onshore to about 100 miles into the Gulf off the coast of Naples Florida. Naples is very odd and has an odd non-realistic way of dealing with everything evidently, including red tide.
Evidently red tide doesn’t exist until the county leaders vote to decide if it exists. They spent a lot of money down there in Naples to buy signs warning people to stay off the beach during Florida Red Tide blooms. They can even be “flipped” when there’s no red tide. Evidently the Tourism director speaks on science issues in Collier county. Check out this statement he made in the newspaper: “Collier Tourism Director Jack Wert said that the signs have not been flipped yet because red tide is not affecting the beaches right now. He says they will only be flipped when county leaders are advised by environmentalists that toxin levels near the beach are higher than normal.”
Please note there is dead fish, humans with repository problems, water samples from FWRI and NOAA, along with satellite images all showing a massive red tide blooms off the cast of Naples and Collier county but yet:
It’s the tourism director speaking about red tide to the newspapers
He’s flat out lying when he says there’s no red tide in Collier County beaches
He says he’s waiting for “Environmental Folks” to tell him to flip the signs
Collier County’s own pollution control division tested the waters and found red tide 10 days ago.
Well here’s some environmental folks telling you: “Flip the signs!”
This comes to us from a man named Nick who lives in Pensacola Florida. He’s not a staff member or affiliated with us in any way. He just wanted people to know what it’s like living with the latest red tide bloom. So we (with his permission) re-printed his e-mail here:
I was out at Pensacola Beach today, inside Fort Pickens National Seashore
State Park, and there is a serious Red Tide happening right now. (as of this
afternoon.) The red tide was so bad that just being near the water caused my eyes to
burn, I started coughing from the fumes coming out of the sea spray.
I’m not a scientist, but I know when somethings is wrong. I can say that in the past 15 years
of me living in Pensacola I haven’t seen the red tide get this bad. There was tons of
dead fish, miles and miles of dead fish. Even the insects were dead. Dead butterflys,
dead dragon flys, dead flys… etc etc. Dead birds. Basically all the marine life
within 50 yards or more to the beach was dead.
It was awful. I couldn’t stand it any longer and I had to leave. The fumes from the water were just too toxic for me to even be on the beach breathing the air. The air was toxic. I got out of there as fast as I could. I have run on Pensacola Beach almost everyday for the past 2 years
now, and I’ve seen red tides come and go, but I have never seen a red tide like this
one.
I just wanted to let ya’ll know, that Pensacola, FL. is having a serious red tide
event happening right now.
– Nik Johnson
Pensacola, Florida
Getting out of there as fast was a wise move!
-TxS
NOAA is still finding several blue-green algae blooms in different places throughout the state. Trichodesmium the scientific name for blue-green algae is usually found in places that don’t get flushed well by the tides. Despite the the insistence from state officials that it’s harmless, everywhere it pops up people come down with burns on their skin, respiratory distress etc.
The Collier County Pollution Control & Prevention Department and FWRI have found a red tide bloom in Collier county, Florida. Specifically at Barefoot Beach and Clam Pass. It seems to be a new red tide bloom. No fish kills reported yet.
FWRI is finally responding to large red tide outbreaks on the west coast and east coast of Florida. They don’t do anything about red tide other than to test for it’s presence mind you, but at least they’ve now done that.
The results show wide spread red tide blooms effecting large areas of the north portion of Florida. What they don’t show is that these red tide blooms have apparently been shrinking, growing and moving about for weeks now. Large fish kills have been washing dead fish ashore all over beaches. Continued…
Red Tide Reports are coming in from numerous press reports of red tide and fish kills in Northern Florida. Even more numerous are the amount of citizen based Red Tide Reports from various Florida locations. These included fish kills and a number of human health related issues, some of them sounding quite grave. Editors note: Thanks for writing in, each and everyone of you. For those of you that are in more serious trouble or your loved one is, I’m praying for ya!)
The red tide blooms hasn’t caught FWRI’s eye yet. FWRI is the state agency that does most of the red tide tracking. They don’t monitor the water that far north in Florida for red tide blooms because it is a rather unlikely spot for them to occur.
Fortunately, at least some local governments in the effected areas are testing for red tide. This will help document the occurrence of this red tide bloom or blooms. It also gives the Press whatever it is they need before they’ll run a story evidently. because there has been a lot of local press on this particular red tide bloom.
In addition there have been lots of citizen based red tide reports coming to us here at red tide Solutions. Read our latest Red Tide Report to see where we’ve been getting reports of red tide in various locations from people throughout Florida.
Thanks for your patience all. The Florida Red Tide Report is now up to date and will stay that way.
Lee County is being hit by red tide again. That’s pretty much makes it a 3 year red tiude for them, with a few weeks off here and there.
A Red Tide bloom that doesn’t occur in the summer is dead give-away that something is desperately wrong.
If there’s red tide now, just think wehat it’s going to be like this summer when the water conditions are even more favorable for algae growth.
Would you like to see an end to red tide within two years? Then click the picture to the left and find out how you can help. It’s taken politicians several years to admit that red tide is on the increase. How long do you think it’ll take them to actually do something about it besides spend lots of money? With your help we can control red tide within two years, maybe less, dependng on how much resistance there is from the government and big business.
Florida Citizens and visitors have been using the 
Florida is currently free from any red tide blooms! No harmful algal blooms of any kind!
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