BRADENTON – Through his hard work and dedication to the cleanup effort during this year’s red tide outbreak in Manatee County, Carmine DeMilio was awarded the first-ever Outstanding Contribution to Tourism Award by the Manatee County Tourist Development Council at its Oct. 18 meeting.
DeMilio, the Manatee County Parks and Grounds Maintenance manager, was presented the award by Elliott Falcione, executive director of the Bradenton Area Convention and Visitors Bureau.
“If it wasn’t for their hard work, tourism would have dropped off in this last red tide episode,” Falcione said, as he presented the award to DeMilio.
Although a person in DeMilio’s position may seem like an unlikely recipient of a tourism award, his efforts to clean up the dead marine life on area beaches made a huge difference in visitors’ decisions to stay on the Island rather than cancel their trips.
During the summer, thousands of dead fish and other marine life littered Island beaches. Red tide is still present in area waters.
While red tide is a natural occurrence, the discharge of millions of gallons of water high in nitrogen content into Tampa Bay from the Piney Point phosphate plant is believed to have been a major contributor to this year’s bloom.
