Dead fish washed up along the shoreline at Bayfront Park in Sarasota last August.
[Herald-Tribune archive / Mike Lang] Event could be held at Robarts Arena or Sarasota Municipal Auditorium in April SARASOTA COUNTY — A water quality summit hosted by the county to address problems plaguing area waterways could happen as soon as April.
The summit, which will address efforts the county and surrounding jurisdictions have made to create clean water, as well as ongoing efforts to reduce water pollution and toxic red tide, will take approximately 90 days to organize, County Administrator Jonathan Lewis said.
The planning of a summit — at the urging of Commissioner Christian Ziegler — comes after the area faced the lengthiest documented toxic red tide event since the 1940s, according to Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials.
After more than a year, lab tests in late January by FWC showed red tide concentrations around Florida were rated at “not present” to “background” concentrations.
More recently, tests showed red tide blooms in Sarasota and Manatee counties have dispersed, at least for now.
Water samples taken earlier this month by FWC showed bloom conditions remained offshore from Monroe County, where medium levels of the red tide organism were detected.
In addition to the expansive fish kills and human health effects, such as respiratory irritation, the outbreak caused hotel occupancy to drop by 11.3 percent in Sarasota County during the last three months of 2018, the steepest year-over-year decline during that quarterly period since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and a sign of just how bad red tide has been for the region’s economy.
The commission last November considered joining with other local governments to enact voluntary fertilizer bans year-round, to curb nutrient pollution that could boost toxic red tide, in turn also sending a powerful message to state legislators that counties and municipalities must have more control over issues plaguing their jurisdictions and diminishing their citizens’ quality of life.
Currently, the state prohibits year-round fertilizer bans if a county or city fails to meet stringent criteria.