{"id":3244,"date":"2021-07-25T14:06:01","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T14:06:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/?p=3244"},"modified":"2021-07-25T14:06:50","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T14:06:50","slug":"florida-red-tide-for-profit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/florida-red-tide-for-profit\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida Red Tide downplayed by Gov. DeSantis and Fish and Wildlife chief for Profit?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\n

Florida Red Tide downplayed: TV host accuses Gov. DeSantis and Fish and Wildlife chief of downplaying Red Tide for profit<\/h1>\n

\n
\"\"<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n

A Florida fisherman and television host accused Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission director Eric Sutton of downplaying the current Red Tide outbreak in order to keep money flowing into Florida while ignoring the problem. At a news conference Wednesday in St. Petersburg, the Governor didn\u2019t deny the accusation.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s a member of Pelagic\u2019s professional fishing team<\/a>; he\u2019s hosted a number of fishing shows for NBC Sports; the Discovery Channel and more. He\u2019s also an author with a degree in environmental and marine science.<\/p>\n

But most days, Kapela makes a living taking tourists from around the world out on charter boat trips from a dock in Tierra Verde.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to come out,\u201d he said. \u201cThey fly down here from wherever and they spend money in the hotels just to come down and fish with me from all over the world.Profit over prevention<\/p>\n

Kapela was on a St. Pete Chamber of Commerce Zoom call this week and said Sutton\u2019s message was clear.<\/p>\n

\u201cEric Sutton told the chamber of commerce: \u2018Here\u2019s the message we need to get out there. We need to keep this away from the media so they\u2019re not talking about it, so they\u2019re not showing all these pictures of dead fish. Tell them Florida is open. Come on down to the beach,\u2019\u201d Kapela said.<\/p>\n

He said DeSantis is patting himself on the back for a cleanup effort that doesn\u2019t address what\u2019s causing devastating blooms \u2014 humans dumping excess nutrients into water.<\/p>\n

He said the State is putting profit before prevention.<\/p>\n

Sutton spoke to WMNF after the conference and said what he meant was that the focus should be on facts-first. But when asked about the statement and cleanup during the conference, DeSantis didn\u2019t shy away or deny the allegation. He backed it up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing it because it\u2019s the right thing to do,\u201d DeSantis said. \u201cJust like the reason why I reconstituted the task force in \u201919. The reason why we\u2019ve done $14.8 million for Red Tide research here.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added cleanups help while scientists study.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope to be able to come back here at some point in the future and say you know, they\u2019ve tried this treatment. They\u2019ve tried this. It can mitigate x,y, and z and all these other things,\u201d he said. \u201cI think we\u2019ll get there. We\u2019ve made some progress with blue-green algae. Red Tide is a little more difficult. But you\u2019ve got some of the best people in our state that are studying this. And they now have the resources and backing of the state government to be able to do the best we can.\u201d<\/p>\n

But there are known ways to reduce the severity of Red Tide, like limiting pollutants and runoff allowed to make its way into Tampa Bay. And it\u2019s those measures, Kapela said, that DeSantis refuses to acknowledge or address. Instead, he said Florida leaders placate to influential industries like phosphate and sugar that have been known to pollute Florida\u2019s waterways.<\/p>\n

Outbreak 2021<\/h2>\n

During the conference, DeSantis said the Bay and Gulf\u2019s waters look better this week than last week. The current Red Tide outbreak has killed about 1,000 tons of sea life in the past few weeks alone. And FWC\u2019s most recent sampling data<\/a> shows high levels of the karenia brevis bacteria that cause Red Tide from Pasco County down to Sarasota. Lower levels have been found as far as 10 miles off the Pinellas County coast.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Red Tide levels around Tampa Bay on July 21, 2021. Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.<\/sub><\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIf you go to the beach it reeks of dead fish. It makes you cough. It is disgusting. Essentially, if you\u2019re swimming in it with your family, you\u2019re swimming in toxic waste,\u201d Kapela said. \u201cThey\u2019re telling people to come down here and swim in toxic waters they created so it doesn\u2019t hurt business. And then they get away with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Red Tide was first documented in Florida in 1844 and is believed to be a naturally occurring phenomenon. However, Red Tide blooms have become more devastating and longer-lasting in recent years. It\u2019s now known that nutrients in water, like those from fertilizer byproducts, can intensify outbreaks.<\/p>\n

Kapela, who makes his living on Florida waters, said clean up without focusing on what\u2019s making outbreaks so bad might help keep businesses open now, but could ultimately devastate Florida\u2019s waters and coastal tourism. Already, estimates from Florida tourism boards put losses from a 2018 outbreak in the hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Pointing to Piney<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While official data remains inconclusive researchers and environmentalists have tied the intensity of the current outbreak to the nutrient-laden water spilled from the Piney Point phosphate plant in April. Nutrients, like nitrogen, present in the 215 million gallons dumped near Port Manatee are known to fuel Red Tide.<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean it\u2019s clear if you go back in FWC log of where they sampled, the Red Tide sampling is all around Tampa Bay,\u201d Kapela said. \u201cThe epicenter is right at the mouth of the Piney Point dump.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the Governor shifted blame from the spill to Hurricane Elsa.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe scientific consensus is clear. It didn\u2019t cause the Red Tide. The Red Tide was here. I think the biggest impact on Tampa Bay was Elsa. Unfortunately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fish kills associated with Red Tide were reported in Tampa Bay waters in early June and by the end of the month<\/a> filled marinas around Pinellas with dead fish. Elsa became a hurricane on July 2 near Barbados, almost 2,000 miles away from Florida. It made landfall on Florida\u2019s Gulf Coast July 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Florida Red Tide downplayed: TV host accuses Gov. DeSantis and Fish and Wildlife chief of downplaying Red Tide for profit July 21, 2021 A Florida fisherman and television host accused Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission director Eric Sutton of downplaying the current Red Tide outbreak in order to keep money Read More…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3,56,6,1],"tags":[1002,25,1003,1004,1005],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3244"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3247,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3244\/revisions\/3247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.nahtnow.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}