Cold snap could be behind smelly algae washing ashore in St. James City

SAINT JAMES CITY, Fla. —

St. James City isn’t exactly known for sandy shorelines, but on the south end of the island, something else has been washing up instead: piles of smelly algae that have some neighbors wondering why it’s suddenly here.

At the boat launch at the end of Oleander Street, mats of algae are building up along the sand and bringing a noticeable smell with them.

“The smell of that is pretty nasty,” said Bruce Silverman, a St. James City neighbor who spotted the gunk while riding his bike down to the water. “It’s kind of like a rotten smell. And it also attracts flies and stuff.”

Silverman is an avid fisherman and boater who says seeing the clumps of algae in this area caught his attention.

“I’ve never seen it before in the back bay areas,” Silverman said. “When I say the back bay areas, I mean between the island, Sanibel, Captiva and Pine Island.”

At first glance, the seaweed looks similar to sargassum — the floating brown seaweed that sometimes washes up on beaches in large amounts. But a SCCF marine research scientist who reviewed photos says while some sargassum may be mixed in, most of what’s piling up appears to be macroalgae, or drift algae, which naturally grows on the bottom of Southwest Florida waters.

The scientist says one possible reason for the buildup could be the recent cold snap, which may have killed off some of the small creatures that normally graze on algae.

Silverman says the amount right now appears small, but it’s still something residents are noticing along one of the few shoreline access points on Pine Island.

“It could get to be a problem,” Silverman said. “But right now it’s just a very small occurrence of it.”

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