Turning the tide

 

Years ago, we would pack up and brave the traffic for a blissful week at Cape Cod.  Sometimes we’d hear reports of something called ‘red tide,’ but the only significance I recall it having on our lives was its suggestion to avoid eating certain seafood.

          Red tide is caused by a harmful algae bloom and is a naturally occurring event that happens off shore and can kill marine species.

          The other week my golf partners and I were unloading our bags at the course we usually use, which sits between Venice’s small private airport and the beaches on the Gulf. (That’s the one named Mexico, in case you’re mistaking it for something else.)

          One of us began coughing, then another. A friendly man walking to his car came over and offered us all cough drops. We thanked him and he said, “I always have them. I work here.”

          I had forgotten. It was the red tide bloom hitting us. While red tide can result in dead fish washing up on shore, it can also cause respiratory distress in humans. And though none of us were exactly ‘distressed,’ it does produce a tickle in your throat that you can’t – quite – get – rid – of.

A friend described her first encounter with it as a newbie to the area. She was meeting people for lunch at an open-air restaurant that sits right on the Gulf (you, know - the Mexico one.) She said the place sounded like a TB ward. They ate somewhere else that day.

This latest batch seems to have moved on up the coast, but local scientists are still working on mitigation. Their study links the volume of nitrogen-rich water that’s released from rivers after hurricanes and can feed the bloom. Happily, the technologies they’ve come up with caused a 70% reduction an hour after being deployed.

Beach goers and diners will be happy to see this solved, although it might cut down on the beverage consumption for the waterside tiki bars.