Red tide threat looms after Piney Point spill. Here are lessons from last big bloom

There were piles of rotten fish and clouds of noxious air. There were jobless commercial anglers and deserted coastal motels. There were dead dolphins, and there were desolate beaches. Sickened seabirds filled animal rescues, and threatened manatees drifted belly-up and lifeless.

These were some scenes from the last major red tide bloom in Tampa Bay. And it could all happen again, sooner than later, thanks to an environmental disaster that was allowed to fester for decades in Manatee County.

A discharge of millions of gallons of polluted water from the Piney Point industrial site in north Manatee could provide the perfect fodder for a major red tide bloom in Tampa Bay, Florida’s largest open-water estuary.

Low levels of Karenia brevis, the naturally-occurring organism that causes red tide, were already being detected as close as Sarasota County before the spill, and this week some samples jumped to medium strength.

Now, the possibility of industrial wastewater nutrients fueling a harmful algae bloom farther north has raised alarm among environmental groups. Many are taking steps to guard against a worst-case scenario, from measures like extra water quality testing to keeping close watch on local dolphin pods.

Just out this month, an in-depth report from the Science and Environment Council of Southwest Florida offers some eye-opening insights into the last major red tide event that affected the Tampa Bay area from 2017-2019. It also details how governments, organizations and residents alike could handle the next big bloom better.

“It’s a hazard we hope won’t return anytime soon,” said marine ecologist Jennifer Shafer, the co-executive director of the council and a co-author of the study. “But like a hurricane, we know the next big red tide is coming sooner or later.”

Red tide’s devastating impact

The Red Tide Impact and Response Assessment includes some startling figures for wildlife, human health and the economy.

Like that one out of every 12 manatees living along the west coast of Florida died from red tide in 2018, in the middle of the long-lasting harmful algal bloom. Or that 2,400 tons of dead animals were cleaned up in the bay area throughout the course of the event. Or that some area seagrass beds saw 85% of fish disappear.

By sea, boat fuel sales dropped across the region, including a 24% dip in Sarasota County, and Manatee County commercial fisheries lost a quarter of their usual haul, according to data analyzed in the study.

And on land, there were up to 17% spikes across the region for emergency room visits because of asthma, a medical condition worsened by red tide. And Manatee and Sarasota counties saw calls for food, utilities, and housing assistance quadruple at the height of the crisis in 2018 compared to the same time the previous year.

While the study found no extreme impact on the Tampa Bay area’s overall business health due to the red tide event, certain areas were struck harder than others. Manatee and Sarasota counties, for example, both saw losses in bed tax revenue. And tourism-related industries in Manatee’s island communities were the hardest hit of any in the region, according to the report, with year-over-year revenue losses of 10% for hotels and 27% for restaurants during the red tide crisis.

The study also carefully examined social media trends throughout the time period, gauging the level of awareness and engagement from politicians, governments and residents.

On Twitter, posts containing the key phrase “red tide” spiked in direct correlation to worsening conditions, the study found. And when conditions got better, the online discourse about red tide died down, too.

So, was the red tide bloom of 2017 to 2019 the worst that the area has ever seen?

Experts still don’t know. But Shafer said the study creates a tool to eventually find out if red tides are getting stronger.

“The severe red tides aren’t frequent enough for there to be a really strong institutional or even public memory about the conditions,” Shafer said.

With the framework created for the study, however, data from a past or future red tide event can be plugged in for easy comparison.

And it may be able to illuminate more clearly what role human activity plays in red tide blooms.

“Although red tide has apparently always been and will always be around,” Shafer said, “certainly when they come inshore they can be worsened by human activity.

“We wanted to have a way to demonstrate that, yeah, it’s important that we protect coastal wetlands; it’s important that we always try to reduce our stormwater runoff.”

How did government respond to red tide?

The research project, which took about six months to complete and was funded by the Tampa Bay Environmental Restoration Fund and the Sunrise Rotary Club Foundation of Sarasota, goes beyond measuring fallout of red tide.

The second half of the study uses past lessons to look ahead. It notes the approaches and innovations that worked well for local governments during the last red tide crisis.

Some standout solutions, according to Shafer, were new methods for rapidly assessing beach conditions; the use of debris collectors under contract for hurricane cleanup to collect dead fish instead; and giving out-of-work anglers the opportunity to aid in red tide response.

“They were working on the fly,” Shafer said of the local government agencies tasked with managing red tide fallout. “None of the counties prior to this event had a red tide emergency response plan. And the institutional memory about the last severe red tide was pretty thin. And I just want to emphasize how harrowing their stories were, and how much pressure they were under.”

Manatee County Parks and Grounds Operations Manager Carmine DeMilio remembers the burn out that settled in for staff after working 10 hour shifts for more than a month straight while cleaning up the death caused by red tide.

“Another challenge was our heartfelt feelings for seeing and removing tons and tons of dead sea life,” DeMilio told the Bradenton Herald. DeMilio was interviewed about his department’s experiences for the study along with other government staff from the Tampa Bay area.

DeMilio said Manatee County’s red tide response crew learned to use National Weather Service wind predictions to plan staffing and equipment needs from day to day.

“We adapted by alternating staff and formed various overlapping shifts,” DeMilio recalled. “We would stage our equipment (loaders, tractors, tools, rolloff containers, etc.) at night, and we were ready to roll out each day at 6 a.m.”

Based on insights like the one’s discovered in Manatee, the study offers detailed recommendations for how coastal counties could improve red tide response.

One major takeaway, according to Shafer, is the importance of collecting dead fish as quickly as possible before they are allowed to drift inland or sink to the bottom of the ocean. Shafer and others involved in the study have a strong hunch that decaying marine life makes red tide blooms longer lasting and more severe.

A potential solution, Shafer said, is for Tampa Bay area counties to pool together cleanup resources, such as sharing a fleet of trash skimmer boats for dead marine life cleanup.

In addition to equipment, the study also encourages local governments to share data, surveillance tools and workforces in combating red tide.

It’s part of a big picture, regional approach to tackling major environmental issues that the Science and Environment Council seeks to foster.

The council is a unique partnership between local government agencies, environmental groups, educational facilities and other Tampa Bay area non-profits that are throwing their weight behind finding solutions to issues like red tide.

The board of directors includes representatives from eight diverse local entities across non-profit and government lines, including Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium, Conservation Foundation of the Gulf Coast, the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program and Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources.

Getting smarter about red tide

Plans are already in motion to use the information that the study provides to prepare for any future red tide crisis.

Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council is planning a conference this June that will bring together Tampa Bay area emergency responders and natural resource teams, according to Shafer. There, they will discuss the findings of the report and share experiences and insights gleaned from the last red tide crisis.

“I think there is great potential here for the Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council to use the Red Tide Impact and Response Assessment and help implement the recommendations with its member governments,” said the regional planning council’s environmental planner, Alana Todd, in a statement.

With any luck, the next big bloom won’t happen for a long time. But when it does, the collaboration should make the region more prepared.

In Manatee County, experienced red tide responder DeMilio characterizes the study as “very beneficial.”

“The report is well comprised of many counties sharing their same experiences,” DeMilio said. “We were all able to learn from their practices, while they learned from ours. I think the more resources we can gather and the more information and data we can collect, it will only help in an event such as red tide.”

The full report can be viewed at scienceandenvironment.org/project/redtide.

This story was originally published April 16, 2021 at 5:06 AM.