Turning The Red Tide

Back in the 1980s, marine ecologist Brian Lapointe may have been the only person in Florida who knew that the state had a serious water quality problem brewing along its coast. He identified the culprit as unhealthy levels of nitrogen-rich runoff into the Everglades and other seemingly pristine inland waterways. The theory, which singled out man’s responsibility in generating much of the suspect effluent, was controversial and unpopular because correcting the problem would require painful economic and regulatory adjustments.

These days, owing to some peculiar happenings in the Atlantic Ocean, Lapointe’s theories are gaining traction. A research professor at FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute in Fort Pierce, he is one of the nation’s top experts on “harmful algae blooms,” including Florida red tide. His premise is that agricultural and urban runoff emanating from the state’s watersheds, coupled with sewage outflows directly into the estuaries and coastal ocean, are behind the massive algae blooms that have sporadically occurred off Florida’s coast for the last 100 years. The result has been large numbers of dead fish and paralyzed sea turtles, he points out, and – at least when the public is properly notified – eerily vacant beaches.
A major catalyst for the development of harmful algal blooms is the release of water from Lake Okeechobee during high-rain seasons either east to the St. Lucie River, west to the Caloosahatchee River, or south through a series of canals to Florida Bay between Everglades National Park and the Florida Keys. Vero Beach residents will remember that the last major red tide occurred on the state’s east coast in the fall of 2007, a decidedly dry year almost everywhere except the Ocala area. That year, heavy rainfall landed in the St. Johns River, which flows northward to Jacksonville before connecting – with its own nutrient-rich load – to southerly-moving, long-shore currents.

Read the entire article in the September 2009 issue