22 Mile Long Oil Plume Proven Conclusively to Exist.
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution has been tracking a a massive underwater oil plume since mid June. Those in power, denied it’s existence, so Woods Hole shifted funds from tracking it and finding others to proving it’s existence. It took over a month they have successfully proven it’s existence and mapped it’s size and shape.
NOAA says they stand by their numbers (which don’t address this kind of thing because they deny they exist).
Where is it now? That’s a Good question says Chris Reddy from Woods Hole. They would like to track it but they are just one University and don’t have the resource.
More bad news in the video as well.
Gee, it seems our government has made some bad conclusions from their data, missed data and didn’t gather the right info from their samples . . .
Congress has discovered, just as we reported earlier, BP has been using more than the allowed amounts of chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico. Further more, just as we reported, this has been done with the approval of the US Coast Guard, and perhaps even their assistance. Furthermore this is direct violation of at least one federal directive from the EPA limiting their use. Even worse, Congress is saying out loud that they suspect that they’ve been lied to about the amount of dispersants that were actually used. Why? The records show that more than what the USCG approved was being used and other record “discrepancies”. Continued…
Governor Crist gets on CNN and says all the right things, we suppose. In truth, we think there’s much more The State of Florida could be doing to keep this oil from washing up on it’s beaches en masse’. If we do, we’ll all be known (including you Governor Crist), as the heros that stopped the flow of Oil from going into the Atlantic and possibly, actually destroying all of mankind. Okay, maybe the BP Oil Leak isn’t a planet killer (how big does an oil spill have to get before it kills the planet anyway?), but if this oil gets into the Atlantic in large quantities, it will be a global disaster.
Of course there is risk for a Governor to do something about this. As you know our Governor is currently campaigning. If he was to go out there and try to get this oil, and fails to get it all, or even just looks silly doing it, his career could be over. So he has a huge motive to stick to traditional emergency response methods. After all traditional and conservative mean just about the same thing and here in FL they argue about who is more conservative like it’s a good thing.
Here’s the “traditional” forms of actions he’s taking:
Requested $50 million from the federal government.
Half of which has been approved and delivered. It’s marked for marketing, of all things.
The other half hasn’t been decided on yet and that half is for beach clean up, booms, skimmers, etc.
Requested $100 million “promptly” from BP for clean up and research projects
Issued a State of Emergency for “virtually” the entire state of Florida
Acting tough and concerned in public about the issue in the media
This is while still saying the beaches are clean and the water clear, come on down to FL and have some fun.
I guess we all knew it would happen sooner or later. we all knew that whether or not the oile from the BP Oil Leak reached the Gulf of Mexico’s “Loop current” or not, the oil would hit at least the Florida panhandle beaches. Now it seems it’s started.
With no end to this giant leak in sight, the future of Florida’s beaches, especially the ones in the panhandle, looks pretty grim. When it does hit the loop current, and it probably will, the east coast of Florida will even be in trouble.
NOAA has been using some new technologies to predict future red tides. Off the coast of Maine, it appears that they will have the worst red tide ever this summer. New Hampshire is included in this gloomy forecast.
The projection is based on a sea-floor survey of the seed-like cysts of Alexandrium fundyense, (which is different than the K. Brevis red tide we get here in Fl, but just as devastating), an organism that causes the harmful algal blooms that are referred to as red tides. Cysts deposited in the fall hatch the following spring, and last fall the abundance of cysts in the sediment was 60 percent higher than observed prior to the historic bloom of 2005, indicating that a large bloom is likely in the spring of 2010.
The Scientists are so alarmed that they held a teleconference for the media in addition to their normal outlook report. Sadly the local oyster farmers seem to be in denial and even seem to be trying to blame the scientists. Saying things like “It’s so unlikely, We certainly don’t lose any sleep about it or worry much about it.” and that the last red tide closure that Duxbury oyster farmers faced was in 2005, when the state’s shellfish industry grappled with the worst red tide bloom in recent memory. Well guys, this one is supposed to be even worse so get worried. Not that there is anything to do about it. Continued…
It’s been long known by citizens, especially in Florida, that red tide kills pets and contributes to deaths of the elderly and the sickly that are bed ridden near red tide contaminated waters. The latter is pretty rare, because usually, anyone that has the resources to live near the water in Florida, has the resources to move when their doctor says “You’re sick already, get away from the red tide!”
Pets and other land animals are a completely different story. Not only are their mouths closer to the ground (the toxins are slightly heavier than air), but lots of animals have no choice but to stay.
Texas Officials are warning people to keep their pets away from the beach, as the red tide has killed several and sickened many many more.
Ever seen a pelican that appears to be drunk during a red tide bloom?
WARNING: It gets grim, sad and a little graphic below: Continued…
In the last few days, three dead dolphins have washed ashore in Volusia County, on Florida’s east coast. Numerous other dead animals like a porpoise, horseshoe crabs, birds and even a sea turtle have been recently reported.
The east coast of Florida doesn’t receive as much red tide monitoring from the state nor do they do as much of their own testing as red tide isn’t as prevalent on Florida’s east coast as it is down in southwest FL.
This week alone in Sarasota FL there have been 3 manatees found dead. The suspected cause of death? Red Tide exposure. Since September 30th, there have been a dozen reported manatees deaths in Sarasota County. Researchers from FWRI were reluctant to attribute red tide as their death and downplayed the odds of red tide being a factor. Martine DeWit, an associate research scientist from FWRI said there were no significant red tide blooms this year. Evidently she has heard about all he fish kills in the Lee County / Collier county area over the last month or so. Or maybe she’s saying that that the red tide bloom that is in Sarasota county currently isn’t strong enough to effect them and there no chance the manatees would have traveled from Lee county. Whatever she saying she also saying that FWRI will test tissue samples from the dead manatees for red tide and other toxins to determine a more definitive cause of death. We like that better than speculation.
I predict the red tide will increase as soon as the rains come.
Obvious you say? I agree. Why so obvious?
The currently accepted theory is that fertilizer builds up in farmlands, government property, (like medians) and your neighbors lawn (you know, the one with the unnaturally green grass, surely you aren’t fertilizing your grass right?), then when the rain comes it washes the fertilizers in to the water. Red Tide is an algae (K. Brevis) which is a plant. The rest is pretty easy to figure out.
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.
In the past we’ve heard from the Florida Government, Mote Marine, START and other government and semi-government entities that “There is no proof that red tide is caused by nutrient pollution. This site provided the evidence and other groups brought to meeting after meeting held by Mote Marine, FWC and others. finally after a few years these organizations and government entities stopped trying to say there was no link.
Several studies have come out recently proving the relations between nutrients like fertilizers from homeowners lawns, golf courses and those oh so important medians between roads (they really need to be fertilized?) Continued…
State officials are proposing to eliminate Maine’s red tide monitoring program in order to comply with required budget cuts, a move shellfish diggers fear could drive them out of business.
Commissioner George LaPointe of the Department of Marine Resources says Gov. John Baldacci’s order to reduce its budget by 10%, or $1 million, requires either radical cuts in the marine patrol or the scrapping of all shellfish inspections.
The commissioner acknowledged that the proposal would essentially close Maine’s $50 million shellfish industry but said deep cuts in marine patrol would hurt all of the state’s fisheries.
The research into the little known (until reported here), area of Plankton Parasites (or parasitoids ), is paying off. In case you haven’t heard, there is a species of micro organisms that feed on specific species of plankton (K. Brevis is one of them). It seems that when several harmful algal blooms like red tide blooms occur in a series for more than a few years in a row (like the last 15 years in Florida or the last 5 in Maine) the problem may be that this parasite can’t survive something and thus can’t flourish enough to reduce the amount of K Brevis in the water.
Here’s some quotes from an article about it:
Using a new technique that allows researchers to track the parasites as they infect the plankton with fluorescent markers, Guillou and her colleagues were able to monitor both an invasive species of plankton and the parasites for three years in a coastal estuary in France. What they were able to see was the very early infection of the plankton by the parasite, and then the eventual swelling and bursting of the plankton as the parasite’s many offspring broke free — hungry to infect again.
“We hypothesize that when a bloom occurs, these parasitoids are not able to infect the invasive species,” Guillou said.
Hello long time, recent and first time readers of Florida Red Tide Solutions! My name is Texx Smith and I’m the sole operator here. I usually am very good at adding new content. However since February of this year I’ve been very busy supplying the Data Systems and General IT services for a WIND Certification Entity participating with the state of Florida’s My Safe Florida Home program. A lot of you have probably noticed the number of new articles per month has dropped off the charts.
The good news is that I’m finally starting to work normal business type hours for money, now I can put in some man hours for Red Tide and spend more time with family. there will be several Florida Red Tide articles posted in the next few days. Even one from a guest writer.
Here’s a hint about some upcoming articles:
Breaking news about lawmakers and Red Tide
Red Tide in Washington state
Local Politicians testify about Red Tide to Feds
Breaking News about Maine’s Red Tide
Educational / Science article by a guest writer
Before even the first article is written or posted however, the red tide report will be updated.
Then some articles.
Then I’m setting up a forum here where it’ll be easy for the public to add their own Florida red tide reports or global red tide reports environmental news etc.
This is yet another response to those who say there is no way known to stop a red tide bloom. There are many, here’s one that’s been proven to work and be environmentally safe. It’s been used in Asia for decades. Continued…
A new Red Tide beach conditions hotline (and accompaning web sites), have been created. I’m not sure I should be even writing about them as there are several already.
Mote Marine Labs has a “Beach Conditions Reports for Southwest Florida” page that uses google Maps technology. Some web developer put a lot of work into this one and it shows. It bases the info on the red tide report within on “old school technology” Mote used to use this old school technology for their old version of this page which was just a text based report like ours. That was fine before. It gathered all kinds of data because it was open to the public (via e-mail) and then Mote started getting all antagonostic and political and red tide events started disappearing from the report and were being reported as less intense as they were etc. etc. Nowadays, sadly, Mote still can’t be trusted for accurate information about red tide.
Of course you can also dial their phone hotline for a recording the number is: 941-BEACHES (1-941-232-2437).
I’m all for the study of red tide. We can’t ever learn how to control red tide if we don’t study it, in fact. But it downright makes me angry when money that is supposed to be going for the study of red tide is instead diverted to some kind of hustle. That what’s happening with the new “Florida Red Tide Center” here in lovely St Petersburg, Florida. Continued…
Is it another wink and nod recognition for my work on Florida red tide? The work that helped get the Federal grant money to study the effects of rainwater on red tide blooms, may have been why they have decided to put the new enter to develop models to forecast Florida red tides at the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg, right down the way from my offices.
The Red Tide bloom in north west Florida may be being fed by nutrients from the Mississippi river. Researchers led by Richard P. Stumpf of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have concluded that nutrients are pushed by seasonal winds in the fall from the Missippi river to the west coast of Florida and feed red tide blooms.
This is a plea for doctors. I’ve received a few people asking for help. Their loved ones have been exposed to red tide and are still sick long after walking away from the red tide. If you experience treating victims of red tide could you help?
We need someone to either contact these people directly or perhaps forward us some info so we can get it to their doctors.
One can get confused with the conflicting reports from the government and press about the red tide in Florida. some sources say it’s dissipated some say it’s still hanging on. some reports say there’s a red tide bloom on the west coast, but not the east coast. Others say the red tide bloom is on Florida’s east coast but not the west.
What the heck is one to think? Red Tide Solutions would like to help, but to tell the truth we are confused too. FWRI doesn’t publish the results of whatever red tide testing they are doing up there on there web site. I’m finding very conflicting reports in the press. My guess is that the red tide bloom is growing because of the rainwater runoff and shrinking because of the drop in water temperature.
So how about it, North Florida Residents what’s the real skinny? Is there Red Tide up on the beaches, bays and in the Gulf up that way or not?
Two stories made the press recently that make it seem there’s something very wrong with Lee County’s leadership.
The first story tells us that Lee County Health Dept has declared the beaches “Clean” in the midst of a huge red tide bloom.(1). I’ll quote the entire article here because this paper likes to take down articles after a few days and only allow access to them through a paid service, which would be fine, except, it doesn’t work).
How on earth they are trying to justify area beaches clean in the middle of a red tide bloom, frankly boggles my mind. So I thought, maybe I’m wrong. So I looked it up and called some people that lived down there. Sure enough they said the beach was “Awful” and to be avoided. How this translates to “clean” by any stretch of the imagination is unclear. I’ve got a call in to the Lee County Health dept. for comment but as of yet haven’t heard back from them. I’ll update this article if I do.
The second disturbing piece of news (2) from Lee county is about a bridge and some fish. Last week workers used explosives to destroy two old drawbridge pilings. They anticipated a large fish kill. Using explosives in water kills all fish in the immediate area. When less only 33 small fish (not one snook, redfish or keeper sized grouper) floated to surface they were happy and called that a good thing.
This is the most uneducated statement I think I may have ever heard. What they have unintentionally done is take a sampling of the fish that live in this area. And this sampling has shown a gross lack of fish in an area where there should have been thousands of fish.
This is a bad thing, not a good thing! Fish are often the apex predator n water areas. If there wasn’t many fish that means there’s something drastically wrong with this ecosystem.
Does Lee county want there waters free of fish, like a swimming pool or something?
People of Lee county: PLEASE START STANDING UP TO YOUR GOVERNMENT AND DEMAND THAT THEY WORK FOR YOU NOT AGAINST YOU. Think about what will happen if you don’t.
After all, this is the same county government that thinks the way to relieve traffic is to charge people to use the roads so that poorest of the poor will not use them as much. (3) Continued…
Hello! Texx Smith here. I’m the producer, designer, developer, editor and marketer for this web site Red Tide Florida.
I’m very pleased to say that several readers have made accounts and would like to write and article (post) or two for this web site. This is great for the public because the more true information the public gets about red tide, the more people will see how easy it is to control red tide. Maybe someone’s words will even inspire the next inventor to develop a cure for red tide.
Click the link at the top of the page that says “Write“
Write your post, as you can see the site’s administrative back end includes a text editor for you that have many word processor type features and is easy to use.
Try to remember to pick a category on the right if you can.
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 has been using some new technologies to predict future red tides. Off the coast of Maine, it appears that they will have the worst red tide ever this summer. New Hampshire is included in this gloomy forecast.
In the past we’ve heard from the Florida Government, Mote Marine, START and other government and semi-government entities that “There is no proof that red tide is caused by nutrient pollution. This site provided the evidence and other groups brought to meeting after meeting held by Mote Marine, FWC and others. finally after a few years these organizations and government entities stopped trying to say there was no link.
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