Tampa Bay Red Tide Concentrations Worst In 50 Years; St. Pete Requests Emergency Declaration
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Council members voted 7-0 to approve a resolution late Thursday night asking Gov. Ron DeSantis to declare a state of emergency as a severe Red Tide bloom and an onslaught of dead marine life continue to plague St. Petersburg’s coastline. They acted the day after the governor’s office rebuked Mayor Rick Kriseman when he made a similar request at a Wednesday news conference. The mayor noted that’s how the governor’s office helped Florida’s west coast during the 2018 Red Tide outbreak. But DeSantis’ office accused Kriseman of trying to “score cheap political points” and said the state is already working to help the city and Pinellas County defray the growing costs of cleaning up dead fish.
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Removing hundreds of tons of dead fish has already cost the city at least $700,000, Public Works administrator Claude Tankersley told council members. The labor and equipment needed to scoop up dead fish carcasses will cost the city more than $60,000 a day as the crisis continues, he said. Another $1.2 million will be spent to address the maintenance and repair work that isn’t being done because the city has diverted about 200 workers to clean-up duty. Pinellas County has now collected 791 tons of dead marine life found along St. Petersburg and the county’s beaches. More than 600 tons likely came from St. Petersburg’s shores. On Wednesday alone, St. Petersburg officials reported 142 tons were removed.
Cleaning up the coast does more than take away the dreadful smell of festered fish, said J.P. Brooker, director of the Florida Conservation for Ocean Conservancy. “Red Tides thrive as fish that are already in water dying continue to rot,” he said. Dead fish release nutrients, which help fuel Karenia brevis, the microorganism that causes Red Tide. “If we’re not using all of our employees to get fish out of the water, that means the Red Tide is likely to last longer and be worse,” Tankersley said.
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The algae blooms have already reached concentration levels not seen in Tampa Bay since 1971, Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission research scientist Kate Hubbard said. Brooker said the April release of 215 million gallons of polluted wastewater into the bay from the defunct Piney Point fertilizer plant in Manatee County is “certainly a contributing factor,” along with warm waters, decomposing fish and the Saharan dust plume. “My opinion is that we’re in for a summer of slime,” Brooker said.
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https://news.yahoo.com/st-petersburg-council-desantis-declare-231300256.html
