Red tide — almost anyone who has spent time on Florida's Gulf Coast Beaches has heard of it. Over the years, it has cost our area millions of dollars in damage, from lost tourism revenue to commercial fishing losses.
Now, there's hope that the ongoing fish kills and breathing problems caused by red tide could be a thing of the past, as last week Mote Marine Laboratory unveiled a series of new tactics and treatments to combat the harmful algal bloom.
It was a bright, sunny day outside Mote Marine on Armond Key, where private companies, scientists, and other officials gathered to showcase years of hard work.
"It's just amazing, to be honest with you, it really does show the benefit of the collaboration of the red tide initiative with the Legislature of the state of Florida, to capitalize on the hundreds of millions of dollars that were spent on this in the first place," said Steve McKenzie, from Prescott Clean Water.
We witnessed demonstrations of three brand-new ways to fight red tide. One is a liquid killer, sprayed from a boat or a drone that destroyed Karenia Brevis, the organism that causes red tide. The best part? While it kills the red tide algae, it leaves fish and other wildlife unscathed.
"Mote's technology is called CLEAR, it's a liquid algicide that is designed for marine application, surface or subsurface, it's designed to be deployed within a red tide algal bloom, " explained Matt Velker, of ACT Environmental and Infrastructure.
The second weapon in this arsenal is a different kind of spray called "Extreme." It was originally designed to fight blue-green algae, which blooms and rots in freshwater. But Mote says it's shown promising results against red tide in salt water as well.
"Extreme, it's called extreme compound, it's a mixture of natural products extracts of Lemongrass, and citric acid and other things," said Richard Pierce, a scientist with Mote Marine Laboratory, "At the doses we are using, it's not harmful, and it made it all the way through tiers one two and three, and now we have permission from the state to go ahead and apply it in the field."
Chemical compounds are not the only tools being used to fight the red tide. Prescott, a company partnering with Mote, uses a process originally developed for fracking, cavitation, to dismantle the red tide at the cellular level.
"This technology is about 15 years old, it was developed for the oil and gas industry, and it was only because the folks at Mote reached out to Prescott who said we think your technology might be able to help. Four years of hard testing later with the great scientists at Mote, we finally have a solution," Steve McKenzie said.
All of these technologies are ready to go right now. Once we see a threatening bloom, Mote says they'll deploy these weapons to fight the toxic algae. We're already seeing some impacts along our Gulf Coast.
The concern for another bloom grows for Tobin Thomas, a regular visitor to Sanibel, with memories of 2018 still relatively fresh.
"It seems to be isolated right here on Sanibel. A few years ago, it was widespread, but right now, it really hasn't impacted me that much, aside from the dead fish," Thomas said, "We were here, five years ago or whatever, there were dead fish all the way up and down the beach, you couldn't walk here."
This means these new strategies to fight it could see their first real-world test sooner than you think.
DOWNLOAD the free Gulf Coast News app for your latest breaking news and weather alerts.