Fish kill feared as algae blooms in Bay

A fish kill could happen soon in Tampa Bay. Scientists in Pinellas County are concerned about an algae bloom stretching 14 miles from Safety Harbor to Weedon Island. The bloom appears as reddish-brown streaks in the water."It's an indicator that something is wrong," said Kelli Levy, with the Pinellas county Department of Environmental Management. "A bloom only occurs if we have stimulated it in some way to grow that fast and to that extent."The bloom could cause the fish kill. At night and on cloudy days, algae depletes oxygen from the water. Fish are left unable to breath."We can have very low oxygen, so you might see fish in the water gulping for air," said Levy."There's no potential human health, risk per se. It's the environmental impacts we're worried about in this case," said Cindy Heil, Senior Research Scientists at the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute.But a fish kill can prompt human health concerns. Last year, thousands of dead fish turned up floating along the Courtney Campbell Causeway. Ben T. Davis beach shut down. The current bloom is much bigger."That area is 3.8 miles where dead fish were found. So now, the bloom is all the way down to Weedon Island so that's 14 miles," said Levy.Microscopic algae can't be removed from the water. It feeds on unnecessary pollutants, from us."We had a lot of rain in May which brought in with it pollutants like fertilizers and yard waste and things that go into storm drains and then we get a good rain event and then it flushes out into the Bay," said Levy.She says the county is making improvements to better protect water quality. "We're building storm water ponds so that the runoff goes from the drain into a pond and gets cleaned a little bit and then the pond discharges to the Bay," Levy said.The algae is not Red Tide. It's Pyrodinium, a species potentially toxic to Shellfish and definitely suffocating to all fish.Levy says a fish could happen in the "near future." However, Heil told FOX 13 "We don't expect one, but if we get a period of more than one or two cloudy days, it's something well be keeping an eye out for.". Kristin Wright Fox News