Red Tides May Set Stage For Fight Between FL Tourism, Agriculture

[hatrack]

ANNA MARIA ISLAND — Ed Chiles, who runs three waterside restaurants near here, watched and worried as toxic "red tide" bloom washed ashore this winter and the air started to sting. Chiles, son of the late governor, Lawton Chiles, remembers his throat growing raspy and his eyes beginning to burn. And not just his, but some of his customers. "When it gets bad, it can ruin your business," Chiles says. "It is potentially devastating."

Red tide is a natural seaborne bloom that, in large quantities, kills fish, sweeping them ashore and littering beaches. It also kills manatees, at least 46 this year. Lastly, it unleashes toxic gases that cause coughing, running noses and respiratory problems in humans. That means big trouble for the large tourism business in Southwest Florida, from Tampa Bay down to Captiva and Sanibel.

The bloom is natural to the Gulf of Mexico, scientists say. But lately, local entrepreneurs and residents say it is growing worse. That has led the tourism industry to raise questions, including one very prickly issue: Does runoff water, rich with fertilizers, most of them from agricultural operations inland, cause the bloom to be stronger and more frequent along the coast? "We're not accusing agriculture, but we want research done," Chiles says. "We want it studied and without regard to whose ox gets gored."

Florida's two biggest industries are tourism and agriculture. The possibility that one issue may set them against each other makes no one happy, in either camp. But that's what it may come to."

EDIT

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/state/epaper/2005/05/22/m1a_redtide_0522.html

[whistle]

1. The causes of red tide are supposedly unknown....

...and any research into the causes and finding ways to control red tide goes unfunded essentially.

I have a theory. Deep sea oil drilling and the pollution and environmental toxins caused by the off-shore and out-of-eye sight drilling and pumping operations.

Jeb Bush has been secretly allowing more and more of these operations to take place off-shore along Florida's 1,800 miles of coastline. Prove that theory wrong.

[Massacure]

3. Toxins would kill the algae.

I'd be willing to guess it is the fertilizer from Florida's agriculture. It would be pretty easy for it to run into the ocean and once there is helps the algae grow instead of the oranges.

[whistle]

4. That's possible also, and Florida's golf courses and the lawns

[alarimer]

5. That would make sense

Nitrogen is usually a limiting factor in the ocean with regard to the growth of phytoplankton so an increase in nitrogen runoff (say from fertilizer) could lead to phytoplankton blooms in general and could have some effect on the red tide organisms (there are many but the most common one in the Gulf is Karenia brevis).

[phantom power]

2. It's interesting to watch people try and come to grips

with the fact that, "conservative" ideology to the contrary, we live on a finite planet where our activities in one arena have impacts on other arenas.

Or, maybe it's trying to avoid coming to grips.