Question about Red Tide....

[TooFarTampa]

the fish and wildlife resource pages are inadequate...they only investigate if its been reported by "several" complaints and typically takes a couple of weeks to get the water tested and the results posted...that info comes straight from them...the best testers in my opinion are your nose and your eyes unfortunately...Red

The page I linked to says a collection was taken 12/19 at Hewitt Bayou in Walton County, wherever that is. That may not be incredibly current, but I would at least hope it is truthful.

 

[redfisher]

to use my nose and eyes method...i walked gulview heights and saw dead fish when the wind blew from the sw got that "smell"...it may not be concentrated, but its still hangin around...Red

 

[Cil]

Something to ponder:

The Red Tide smell is an awful lot like the stink that occasionally comes from Arizona Chemical. I smelled that smell--just a whiff--when I drove into Panama City on Tuesday.

 

[aquaticbiology]

Something to ponder:

The Red Tide smell is an awful lot like the stink that occasionally comes from Arizona Chemical. I smelled that smell--just a whiff--when I drove into Panama City on Tuesday.

and that is a clue, and you are looking in the right place, just a short distance from there actually, are the leach pits for st joe paper company which notoriously flood during heavy rain (let me guess - it rained a lot lately)and deliver their iron rich contents into the streams and thus into the area - poor cedar key, they've had red tide almost all year now - ahhhh, the price we pay for paper, especially the white bleached 'notebook' paper every kid in america is required to buy and take to school. look around your area after it rains for the tell-tale signs of brown stained sand where iron water has gotten into the ocean (the water may be brown from tannin, but it dosen't turn the sand brown - look for the brown stained sand, almost red-black where runoff occurs and there's your culprit - get rid of the nutrients and iron and get rid of the bloom).

 

[redfisher]

what about the dead fish?...