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Committee to focus on prevention

Clean water group poses solutions to algae blooms

Written by SUN contributor on . Posted in Algae, Featured, Outdoors.

HOLMES BEACH – As members of the city’s Clean Water Ad-Hoc Committee seek solutions to water quality issues already plaguing the area, Mayor Judy Titsworth wants them to shift focus to their overall goal – prevention.

Committee members met recently to get water testing results, review feedback from city commissioners and hear from Suncoast Waterkeeper Chair Rusty Chinnis, The Sun’s outdoors columnist.

During the meeting, Titsworth stepped up to the podium to talk about different devices that could be used to remediate algae problems around Anna Maria Island. She said that none of the devices she’s seen so far are really impressive in their capabilities. She also added that while using a device to churn the water and push lyngbya algae mats out of canals and into the bay would help improve the quality of life for residents, it doesn’t solve the problem, which is preventing the algae blooms in the first place.

“It’s a Band-Aid,” she said of the devices. “The big goal is prevention.”

Members of the committee agreed, but some said they’d like to look into the possibility of using skimmers to remove the algae mats from the top of the water. The problem with those, Titsworth said, is that once captured, the algae needs to be disposed of. She said that some of the skimmers would break up algae, which would also cause it to sink, decomposing on the bottom of waterways and creating excess nitrogen, which causes waterways to deteriorate.

“We have to fix the water,” committee member Scott Ricci said. “If we fix the water, the algae goes away.”

Committee to focus on prevention
Environmental advocate Rusty Chinnis spoke to members of the Holmes Beach Clean Water Ad-Hoc Committee during a June 8 meeting. – Kristin Swain | Sun

Chinnis told the committee that local waterways have lost approximately 15 years’ worth of seagrass in just three years, illustrating the issue of deteriorating water quality. He encouraged committee members to do everything possible to get in front of politicians to demand change and work to prevent problems rather than focus on dealing with the aftermath.

Chinnis said that he doesn’t think using equipment to push algae blooms around or to skim them off the top of the water will help. With such large algae mats forming, along with fish kills and red tide algae, he said that even with skimming some off the top, too much material will still sink and decompose, leading to higher nitrogen levels that encourage more lyngbya and red tide blooms.

Steve Swan gave committee members the results of a water quality test conducted in the 59th Street canal in Holmes Beach. He said that not only is the nitrogen level in the sample very high at over 12 milliliters per liter, but the algae level also is extremely high. The test to see how much oxygen is in the water showed that the area’s waterways are very stressed, with oxygen levels depleted, Swan said.

Committee members agreed to put more of their $30,000 budget toward water sampling, testing drinking water and algae remediation efforts. They also plan to provide freelance employee support to the city, if needed, to manage a website giving tips and advice to the public on how to change actions to prevent excess nutrients and algae in area waterways.

Reel Time: Waterkeepers hold HAB forum

Written by Rusty Chinnis on . Posted in Outdoors, Reel Time.

Island residents might not be familiar with the term harmful algae blooms (HAB), but the bouts of lyngbya and red tide that have plagued the area are all too common. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) defines the blooms as “simple photosynthetic organisms that live in the sea and freshwater that grow out of control while producing toxic or harmful effects on people, fish, shellfish, marine mammals and birds.”

On Friday, July 23, Suncoast Waterkeeper and Tampa Bay Waterkeeper held a public forum at the Bradenton Yacht Club to inform area residents of the threat these blooms pose and help them understand what causes them and what we need to do to address the problem.

Dead baitfish and a Goliath grouper killed by red tide collect at a barrier erected at an entrance to Robinson Preserve from Tampa Bay. – Submitted

The program began with an introduction by Suncoast Waterkeeper Chair Joe McClash and Founder Justin Bloom. The forum included presentations by Ed Sherwood, the executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, and Dave Tomasko, the executive director of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program. Both Sherwood and Tomasko pointed to the intentional release of over 200 million gallons of waste “process” water from the Piney Point facility in Manatee County this spring as the likely cause of the devastating bloom that has killed millions of fish in upper Tampa Bay in the last month. This event was the first of its kind since 1971, when millions of gallons of partially treated sewage and wastewater were routinely being discharged into the bay.

Both Sherwood and Tomasko are seasoned scientists and also have intimate firsthand experience on local waters. Sherwood came up through the ranks at the TBEP to become its executive director in 2018 after serving as the program scientist since 2008. Sherwood is responsible for maintaining TBEP’s partnerships and continuing the bay’s science-based restoration and recovery strategies. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in marine biology from the University of West Florida and a Master of Science degree in marine fisheries and ecology from the University of Florida. Tomasko has more than 30 years of experience on local waters. He holds a doctorate in biology from the University of South Florida, a Master of Science degree in marine biology from the Florida Institute of Technology and a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Old Dominion University. Tomasko was also the first-ever SBEP program scientist.

A sold-out audience of more than 100 participants crowded the Yacht Club’s dining room, where they enjoyed coffee, tea and a continental breakfast during the event. Hundreds more joined via Google Meets and a Facebook Live broadcast. The presentation was also filmed by Carl Shelton of Manatee Educational Television and will be available to the public soon. Interested parties can view the Facebook Live broadcast at Suncoast Waterkeepers Facebook page.

Dr. Dave Tomasko is interviewed by news media after his presentation. – Rusty Chinnis | Sun

Each presentation included supporting graphics and data that emphasized the concerns of both scientists. While there are obviously nuances and the science is constantly unfolding, a few facts really drove home the seriousness of our water quality issues. The main takeaway for this reporter was the fact that between 1980 and 2017, water quality and seagrass coverage improved significantly in Tampa Bay and Sarasota Bay. Since 2017, all those almost 40 years of gains have been lost and there are concerns that both bays could soon go the way of the Indian River Lagoon, once described as “one of the most biodiverse estuaries in the Northern Hemisphere.”  That ecological treasure has collapsed and “since 2009, 58% of the seagrass in the lagoon system has disappeared, choked off from sunlight as a result of an over-saturation of nutrients in the water,” according to the St. Johns River Water Management District.

This catastrophic collapse has led to the unprecedented death of more than 841 manatees between Jan. 1 and July 2, breaking the previous record of 830 that died in 2013 because of an outbreak of toxic red tide. Dr. Tomasko explained that most of the deaths have been by drowning due to malnutrition from the lack of the seagrasses they depend on. Both scientists fear that we are perilously close to the same thing happening here if we don’t act fast. Despite the alarming statistics, Dr. Tomasko was optimistic that we could still turn this around. That will take the involvement of all stakeholders in the region from plumbers and electricians to developers, builders and – most importantly – our elected officials. While it’s easy to blame our leaders for our water quality ills, it’s important to remember that this is a shared responsibility. We the voters elected the politicians that are responsible for protecting these valuable resources. It’s critical that we do a better job vetting the leaders we choose. The future we leave for our children, grandchildren and all future generations depend on it.

Piney Point-algae link explored

Piney Point-algae link explored

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Algae, Featured, Outdoors.

TAMPA BAY – The discharge of 215 million gallons of polluted water from Piney Point into Tampa Bay in March and April probably exacerbated the natural growth of toxic algae, bay managers say.

Contrary to researchers at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg, officials at the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program and the Tampa Bay Estuary Program agree there is a link between the nutrients in the discharged water and current algae blooms.

The water was intentionally released from March 30 to April 9 to prevent the collapse of a compromised gypsum stack that held a wastewater retention pond at the top. A total collapse could have resulted in a worse spill that threatened to flood nearby homes and businesses, which were evacuated during the event.

Since then, multiple agencies testing local waters have reported blooms of red tide algae and of lyngbya, a type of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria. Other finds include trichodesmium, another type of cyanobacteria, and brown algae. Red tide produces a brevetoxin, while blue-green algae produces a cyanotoxin; both toxins can be dangerous to people and marine life, and both algae species feed on the phosphorus and nitrogen in the discharged water.

Anna Maria Sound is in dire condition, according to Holmes Beach Mayor Judy Titsworth, one of many local residents who are sounding the alarm.

“I have never in 58 years seen it this sick,” she said. “There is no life.”

Fishing guides have long frequented Tampa Bay waters between the Sunshine Skyway Bridge and Port Manatee, where the discharge occurred, said Rusty Chinnis, The Sun’s outdoor columnist.

“There was never red tide there, and now there is,” he said. “I believe it’s a smoking gun.”

Lyngbya is not a new occurrence locally, but has been worsened by the Piney Point spill, he said.

“Did the Piney Point spills cause the lyngbya blooms or red tide problems we’re seeing? No. But are the nutrients from those discharges likely making it worse? Yes,” said Dr. David Tomasko, executive director of the Sarasota Bay Estuary Program.

“Piney Point added about 200 tons of nitrogen and about 100 tons of phosphorus to our local waters,” he said. “We don’t know where it all went, but it appears that a substantial amount of that nitrogen could have ended up in the macroalgae we are now seeing throughout Anna Maria Sound.”

Algae blooms have been appearing and shifting in Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico since shortly after the Piney Point discharge, according to Ed Sherwood, executive director of the Tampa Bay Estuary Program.

“I suspect that these different blooms are capitalizing on the 200+ tons of nitrogen circulating in Tampa Bay, upper Sarasota Bay and the nearshore Gulf beaches stemming from the original discharge event,” he said. “That is, the nutrients are now cycling though the bay’s ecology and the latest red tide and lyngbya blooms are a manifestation of more nutrients being available in these waters in comparison to a ‘normal’ dry season.”

Dr. Kristen Buck, chemical oceanographer at the University of South Florida College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg, disagrees.

“At this point we simply do not have data to support a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the Piney Point discharge and the occurrence of the red tide, which is of course being detected at several sites within Tampa Bay but also along parts of the Gulf coast,” she said. “Nutrient chemistry in seawater is a complex issue, and this is certainly true for Tampa Bay. Red tides are also a complex phenomenon.”

As water quality decreases, the spotlight is on responsibility for the damage.

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection has advised the owners of Piney Point, HRK Holdings LLC, that the state’s emergency order regarding the incident has expired and that “the company is expected to meet its legal responsibilities as site owner and operator to manage the site to ensure the integrity of the stack system and protect the health, safety and welfare of the public and the environment. DEP remains committed to its stringent regulatory oversight of the facility and to holding HRK accountable for the recent events at the site through all possible legal means.”

HRK filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2011 after an accidental spill of wastewater from Piney Point into Tampa Bay.

Mats of algae clog marina, affect business

Mats of algae clog marina, affect business

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Algae, Featured, Outdoors.

TAMPA BAY – When the thick, slimy algae known as lyngbya gets into a boat motor, the fishing trip, dolphin tour, or sunset cruise is over.

A local tour boat operator fears it may not only stifle business but suffocate seagrass and even marine life if something isn’t done about it.

Captain Ben Webb, of AMI Dolphin Tours, helped coordinate a cleanup today of the Waterline Marina in Holmes Beach at the marina’s expense. High-pressure water from a hose pushed mats of algae against a seawall, where it was vacuumed into a tanker truck for disposal.

It’s not easy to talk about the smelly mess.

Mats of algae clog marina, affect business
Lyngbya in an Anna Maria Island canal today. – Cindy Lane | Sun

“It’s kind of a catch-22,” Webb said. “If we tell everybody about it, then our businesses drop, but if we don’t tell everybody about it, all of our seagrasses, everything’s gonna die.”

Growing mats of lyngbya can cover large areas and be several feet deep, impeding navigation and recreation, smothering submerged plants and clogging water intakes, according to the University of Florida Institute for Food and Agricultural Science.

“What a pain. It gets into my motor and if I’m not careful, I could overheat and burn up my motor,” said Capt. Kim Ibasfalean, of Capt. Kim’s Charters in Bradenton Beach, where the algae clogged canals last week.

It’s also a health threat. Lyngbya can emit cyanotoxins that can cause people hay fever-like symptoms, skin rashes, respiratory and gastrointestinal distress, and, if consumed, liver and kidney damage, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Some worry that the widespread bloom of lyngbya, a type of blue-green algae that appears brown, could be related to the April release of 215 million gallons of polluted water into Tampa Bay at Port Manatee from one of the closed Piney Point phosphate plant’s retention ponds. The emergency release prevented even more wastewater from being spilled from a pond built on top of a gypsum stack that had begun to crumble. The water contained the nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen. Lyngbya feeds on those nutrients.

Nutrients going into the water from various sources “are definitely the reason we have it,” Webb said.

Since the discharge, fewer dolphins are using the waters near Port Manatee and are congregating more than two miles away from the discharge site, according to the Sarasota Dolphin Research Program at Mote Marine. The program has been monitoring the dolphin community near Port Manatee for impacts from the discharge.

“In the dolphin business, we take people out every day to see these dolphins,” Webb said. “If all this seagrass goes away, what happens then is these dolphins that have been here for years and years and tens of hundreds of years are gonna move on to find better places to feed. We’re so fortunate to have what we do here but this grass is going to die.”

Mats of algae clog marina, affect business
Ben Webb, of AMI Dolphin Tours, organized a cleanup today of mats of lyngbya algae at a Holmes Beach marina that was blocking tour and fishing boats. – Rusty Chinnis | Sun

Scientists taking water samples to monitor the effects of the Piney Point discharge said today that there is no known connection between the nutrients in the release and any algae blooms.

Red tide is the more pressing threat, particularly in late summer and early fall, according to oceanographer Dr. Robert Weisberg, with the University of South Florida College of Marine Science in St. Petersburg.

“It’s a little too early now to prognosticate about what’s going to happen then,” he said.

Meanwhile, water monitoring continues.

No cyanotoxins – the neurotoxins that are produced by blue-green algae – were detected in the water samples taken in Tampa Bay on May 18, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Results taken from samples on May 20 are pending.

Large-scale removal of lyngbya is difficult, partly because of the potential for damage to seagrass and mangroves in some areas, and partly due to the volume of the algae and its mobility due to winds and tides, according to Damon Moore, with the Manatee County Parks and Natural Resources Department. The department is tracking a lyngbya bloom at Robinson Preserve in west Bradenton.

“It is not feasible to remove the extraordinary biomass of lyngbya during these bloom events on a bay-wide scale,” he wrote to county commissioners earlier this month.

“It is highly probable that even if extensive resources were expended on physical removal of algae mats… that would not be enough to prevent negative consequences like putrid smell and fish kills because most of the material cannot realistically be removed from the water,” he wrote. “The scale at which removal would have to occur in such a large and open system is not likely feasible and is cost-prohibitive. Focus should be placed on blocking floating mats entering areas where that is feasible and cleaning it from heavily used areas (i.e. beaches) where mechanical removal is feasible without causing additional natural resource damages.”

Captain Webb issued a dire assessment.

“Everything in this water is dying,” Webb said, following his day of cleaning algae-choked canals. “And we just can’t have that here. It’s just time for the business owners to step up and say this has to stop.”

Related coverage

 

Piney Point spill leads to lawsuit

Lyngbya bloom clogging bays, ICW

Blue-green algae bloom clogging bays, ICW

Written by Cindy Lane on . Posted in Algae, Environment, Outdoors.

Nutrients and warming temperatures are feeding a bloom of blue-green algae called Lyngbya in area waters, according to scientists with Manatee County.

As has been the case over the last two years, Lyngbya is accumulating in the waters of Robinson Preserve and in the Intracoastal Waterway, Sarasota Bay and Tampa Bay, according to a report by county environmental scientists distributed to county commissioners by Acting County Administrator Scott Hopes last week.

Excessive Lyngbya, a cyanobacterium, is common locally when warm temperatures combine with nutrient-rich waters to form mats, according to the report.

The nutrients phosphorus and nitrogen were contained in the 215 million gallons of polluted water released into Tampa Bay at Port Manatee last month from one of the closed Piney Point phosphate plant’s gyp stack retention ponds. An accidental leak detected on March 26 led to the intentional discharge that ended April 9 and kept the stack from collapsing.

Contact with Lyngbya can result in itching, burning, pain, rash, blisters and cell death, resulting in loss of superficial layers of the skin, according to the report. Airborne toxins from the algae can cause eye and respiratory irritation.

Excessive growth of lyngbya can result in damage to seagrass beds and oyster bars, foul odors, oxygen depletion in the water and fish kills. It also can cause harmful algal blooms such as red tide, also associated with detrimental human health effects. Low levels of red tide were reported last week in Manatee County by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

The mats are formed when naturally-occurring Lyngbya on the bay bottom is exposed to increased temperatures, sunlight and nutrients, causing rapid growth, according to the report. Longer days and clear water conditions cause Lyngbya to rapidly produce oxygen, causing bubbles to form and become embedded in its filaments, which makes the algae float to the surface to be carried by tides and winds, sometimes forming mats. Accumulations often increase along shorelines, like Robinson Preserve.

“It is not feasible to remove the extraordinary biomass of Lyngbya during these bloom events on a bay-wide scale,” the report states. “The scale at which removal would have to occur in such a large and open system is not likely feasible and cost prohibitive.”

No cyanotoxins – the neurotoxins produced by blue-green algae – were detected in water samples taken in Tampa Bay on May 4 in response to last month’s Piney Point discharge, according to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Results taken from samples on May 6 are pending.

Exposure to cyanotoxins can cause hay fever-like symptoms, skin rashes, respiratory and gastrointestinal distress, and, if consumed, liver and kidney damage, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Reel Time: Trouble in paradise

Written by Rusty Chinnis on . Posted in Outdoors, Reel Time.

Have you ever driven down the Gulf beach and seen flags flying on the lifeguard stands? We’ve worked out a system to alert people who use the local beaches of potential hazards. A green flag signifies that all is well, whereas a double red or purple flag alerts people that the water is not safe to swim in.

Unfortunately, there’s no such system to alert people of dangers in our bays. If there were, purple flags would be flying! In just the last two months there’s been a multi-thousand-gallon sewage spill in Manatee County, a potentially multi-million-gallon discharge from a broken sewer line from Longboat Key to the mainland and a persistent lyngbya bloom (a potentially toxic algae) that is becoming explosive in Anna Maria Sound and surrounding waters.

Worst of all, these are just the major insults that are but a part of the larger problem. I’m concerned about these issues because I am a fisherman and have seen the effects of declining water quality on fishing. Sure, water quality is a concern for everyone who lives here, fishes here or visits here. What’s less well understood is the fact that the quality of local waters is directly related to the economic health of the region.

What seems to be missing is an understanding of what we’re leaving for our children and grandchildren, as well as future generations that will follow. While this has been a theme of my columns, it really hit home when I received this letter from 12-year-old Brice Claypoole:

Who wants to swim in sewage water?

By Brice Claypoole

This week we had a sewage leak into Sarasota Bay. Millions of gallons of sewage water leaked out of a pipe going from Longboat Key to the mainland. This isn’t the first time a sewage spill like this has happened and if we don’t change things, it won’t be the last.

So why is this such a big deal? Well, for starters, who wants to swim in sewage water? Personally, I don’t. But that’s not the only reason this is so concerning. The nutrients from sewage spills can fuel harmful algal blooms, like red tide. In 2017 and 2018, hundreds of marine animals died and millions of dollars were lost in areas like tourism and fishing because of red tide. So, the problem is that millions of gallons of sewage is a lot of red tide and bacteria fuel.

Being a kid, I have another reason to be concerned: I love this island and I love the bay. They’re my home. In 40 years, I want to be able to take my kids out into the bay and have dolphins jump by and find giant whelks and watch roseate spoonbills on mangrove islands. There’s nothing we can do about this sewage spill now. All we can do is hope nothing happens, but I fear this will not be the case; I fear fish will die and people in the area will not be able to swim for a while. We can and must stop sewage spills from happening in the future. More spills will certainly happen if we do nothing.

The pipe that leaked was 50 years old; it should have been replaced years ago, before this happened. We need to tell town and state officials that we want old pipes upgraded. We need to tell them that we are upset about this and disappointed that they did not take steps to stop this from happening. And those of you who can vote need to vote for people that will protect our environment. We need to do all these things to protect our amazing bay and all its beautiful inhabitants (spoonbills, dolphins, herons and more) forever.