Toxic red tide plaguing Florida beaches on both coasts

MIAMI — Many of Florida’s famous beaches were barren in recent days because of a red tide outbreak that for the first time in decades is plaguing both the Gulf and Atlantic coasts at once.

While the Gulf Coast has suffered the brunt of the toxic algae outbreak all summer, it only just showed up last week on the Atlantic beaches of South Florida.

Miami-Dade County closed Haulover Beach — including a popular nudist section — Thursday and the growing crisis prompted Gov. Rick Scott to announce $3 million in state assistance for five counties in the region. Most southern Florida beaches were open Friday, but with warnings posted about the toxic algae.

“It’s very rare for us to have it over here,” said Lieutenant Matthew Sparling of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department. “People come here to be on the beaches and they don’t want to be coming down here to be exposed to red tide or sewage spills or whatnot … so yeah, I think we can be in trouble. “

Red tide can cause breathing problems in humans. It’s been blamed for tons of dead fish on miles of beaches.

State officials say a red tide bloom that began last fall now stretches along roughly 135 miles of Florida’s southwest coast, affecting businesses, tourism and vacations.

“The ocean is big business out here,” said Richy Beck as he unloaded a truck full of beach chairs last week at Haulover Beach. “It’s bad for business, man. It means I’m going to be on the unemployment line.”

In Florida’s Panhandle, crews of county jail inmates are cleaning up piles of dead fish killed by a red tide bloom near Panama City Beach. Bay County had the highest concentration of algae, while Walton, Santa Rosa and Okaloosa counties had lower concentrations.

Along the mid-Gulf Coast, Pinellas County is partnering with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to issue a first-of-a-kind air quality forecast to keep residents and visitors safe during red tide.

Nick Shay, Professor of Ocean Sciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said the currents that would take red tide from the Gulf of Mexico into the Atlantic Ocean are always circulating, but the levels of algae in the Gulf are extremely high.

“This year has been an anomalous year for red tide,” Shay said, but the algae’s reach to the east coast is “not a stretch.”

The Florida Current, which forms the core of the Gulf Stream, can meander widely, bringing red tide close to shore or holding it out at sea for long periods of time. “These meanders can occur daily or weekly or seasonally,” Shay said. “If the Florida Current meanders toward the coast, that could amplify an already bad situation into a worst case scenario.”

The King Tides expected in southern Florida in October and November also could worsen the outbreak, as high levels of seawater push into shore, if large amounts of the algae are flowing close to the shoreline.

Vincent Lovko, a staff scientist at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, said the last time a red tide outbreak affected the Atlantic coast was in the mid-1990s.