Red tide's impact on Southwest Florida air quality

Across Southwest Florida, we are starting to see the impacts of red tide on our coasts. But since the conditions are worsening, it’s also impacting the air we breathe.

Lea Edwards came to Southwest Florida to visit with family and said, “Right away, I think you can notice the smell.”

She has heard of red tide before but she says she doesn’t much experience with it. “I don’t think I’ve experienced it as much as I have today.”

Dead fish are lining the shore of Lighthouse Beach Park on Sanibel, which is currently under a red tide health alert.

“One of the big human health concerns with red tide would be the fact that when the cells get close to shore and they get in the breaking waves and things like that, they can burst and release the toxin into the sea spray,” said Mike Parsons, director of the Vester Field Station at Florida Gulf Coast University.

Parsons wants to measure red tide toxins in the air that give us irritation and make us cough. “How far do these toxins travel in the air then? And number two, since we’re also looking at that with the blue-green algae, could there be any interactions between microcystins from blue-green algae and brevetoxins from red tide?”

Those are the same methods as when he samples blue-green algae toxins in the air using canisters.

“We’ll put out the units, leave them on for a certain period of time, and then collect them,” Parsons said.

Edwards just hopes it gets better for her and her family so they can enjoy their visit. “I hope that it gets better and I hope that, yeah, for other people too, that they go to beaches that don’t have this.”

Parsons is considering placing air quality samplers at Vester Field Station, near Bonita Beach and in Cape Coral to see how red tide and blue-green algae toxins interact.