Red tide and toxic blue green algae have polluted Southwest Florida's water ways for just over the past year, the effects have been absolutely devastating to the region both ecologically and financially. Red tide has killed hundreds of thousands if not millions of fish native to the Gulf of Mexico, these fish washed up on shore of our beaches causing an awful smell and the beaches to be not only unsafe but completely unusable for a good part of the past year. Personally after moving to the Fort Myers area I’ve seen first hand the devastating affects red tide had from a trip with some friends to Fort Myers beach. As we parked we knew something was very off from the second we opened our doors, the smell hit you like a truck and made you want to vomit and drive far away, but we wanted to see for ourselves what we kept hearing on the news assuming they were exaggerating. As we made our way down to the water we couldn’t see any of the actual algae but as far as the eye could see there were thousands of dead fish from snook and redfish, to crabs and blowfish, it seemed no fish was safe or unaffected from red tide. We wandered aimlessly down the beach hoping that there would be less dead fish, but it just kept getting worse. Suddenly we saw something moving in the sand, baby sea turtles were attempting to make their first trip into the ocean. Since it was a cloudy night they couldn’t follow the moon into the sea, and instead were scuttling towards the houses that had their lights on. In a desperate attempt to save the little signs of life we had seen on the beach we pulled out our phones and turned on the flashlights as we walked into the water. Slowly but surly all the baby turtles began to make their way into the ocean and swam off hopefully to live long and happy lives (this was in September of 2018 towards the end of the worst algae blooms). This whole experience was my introduction into the Fort Myers area ,and it left me wondering how such an awful event could take place and what was being done to fix it. The effect on the environment in turn had a devastating effect on the economy, less fish meant less businesses for fisheries based out of Bonita springs who were affected the worst. Beaches like Fort Myers beach were hit extremely hard because of the lack of tourism. Restaurants and hotels had such low customer counts over the time that the red tide was rampant were struggling to fill rooms/tables, which resulted in lots of job loss along the coast. Sanibel island had such a dramatic reduction in visitors they shut down several restaurants for months because they couldn’t make ends meet. The lack of tourism came so swift and got so bad that they even opened up food banks for the folks that lived and worked out the island because they couldn't feed themselves.
After doing some research I found that red tide is nothing new, red tide has been happening for hundreds of years, and was first recorded by Spanish conquistadors in the 1400’s. After large storms red tide or similar algae blooms have been reported with almost identical effects on the environment in South America and Asia. But without a shadow of a doubt red tide has got much worse and larger in Southwest Florida as time has gone on. The question I then had is, why? What causes red tide and why has it got to the point of killing millions of fish in an area as nice as Fort Myers and Cape Coral? The reasons for this past years red tide being the worst recorded is mostly in part to Hurricane Irma. After massive storms like Irma, Lake Okeechobee gets filled up to the point of over flowing, but thanks to a dam built in the 1920’s by the Army Core of Engineers the over flowing water is funneled out through rivers like the Caloosahatchee that leads right into the gulf through Fort Myers. Before the dam, water from an over filled lake Okeechobee was filtered through the “River of Grass” and fed into the Everglades. The River of Grass was and has been a great place for agriculture bringing a large interest from U.S sugar. After the dam went up U.S sugar utilized the fertile land south of lake Okeechobee for sugar cultivation. In recent years it is thought that the algae blooms have been caused by the fertilizer from U.S sugar polluting the water runoff which has caused the blooms to happen more often and get worse. Red tide isn’t the only algae bloom to harm Florida's waterways and feed off the fertilizer polluted water. Toxic blue green algae has clogged the canals of Cape Coral and made them almost unusable. The blue green algae was linked to respiratory problems and caused skin rashes on people who came into contact with it. While red tide hurts the environment it doesn’t pose as much of a threat to humans but on the other hand toxic blue green algae can effect humans because of the closeness of the blooms. Red tide is in the Gulf while the blue green algae is throughout the inner costal water ways like canals and rivers that residents in Southwest Florida use very often.  Even though this past year has been rough for our coastal waterway they are recovering nicely. All of the beaches have been reopened and deemed safe to both swim and fish in and the algae blooms have almost disappeared. As the weather begins to warm up we can expect to see more and more people enjoying our Southwest Florida beaches such as Ft. Myers Beach and Sanibel island. As we continue to recover the fishing has slowly started to get better with lots of shark, snook, and red fish being caught along the coast.
Another sign that things will get better in the near future is an executive order signed by Ron De Santis at Florida Gulf Coast University’s marine field station. He signed an executive order for 2.5 billion dollars for Everglades restoration and water resources. In the executive order he also calls for a blue green algae task force with the sole purpose of reducing the blue-green algae impacts over the next five years. The South Florida water management District has also been instructed to immediately begin the next phase of The Everglades Agricultural Area Storage Reservoir Project through the Army Corps of Engineers. In the executive order he requires that all restoration plans are updated and secured for South Florida waterways including Lake Okeechobee the St. Lucie River and the Caloosahatchee River due to their massive impact on South Florida communities. With this executive order the plan is to lessen the effects of red tide and blue green algae by finding a temporary solution at first but to also find a permanent solution within the next 5 years, making southwest Florida a desirable place to be as things get better. With our ecosystem recovering naturally and the help from the executive order, Southwest Florida should see a prosperous next five years both economically, environmentally, and for years to come. This will bring lots of visitors, new residents, bump up tourism and this increase will bring lots of business and commerce to the local economy.