no leak.
its red tide.
a naturally ocurring event that usually happens once every few years. lately however, it has been happening about twice a year in the gulf of mexico. the reasons it is happening more frequiently range from warmer waters, pesticide runn off from farms, to chemicals from oil platforms to some combination of all three.
it is a bloom of a type of plankton in such a great quantity in open water that it some times turns the sea a red or green color sometimes. it is always present, but what causes it to explood every once in a while is still a mystery with only theories to say why.
when it does, it releases a neurotoxin in the water in suffecient quantites that affects the nervious system of just about anything that swims through it. most of them die. bottom feeders go first. lots of catfish, rays, drum and the sort. but it eventually gets everything. saw a 5 foot tarpon on shore. a 4 foot round sea turtle too.
the toxin remains on the affected fish too. cooking wont kill it, neither will freezing. usually a temporary ban of any and all types of commercial fishing in the affected area. shell fish dont usually die from it, but they carry the toxin in their system long after the bloom is gone. so dont eat anything without fins from the gulf of mexico, including crawdads and oysters. it is happening twice a year now, so pretty good bet most of them have been exposed to it.
for humans, it isnt fatal, but does affect the respatory system. anything from sneezing to runny eyes, congestion, and if your ashmatic, problems breething that usually go away immediatly when you leave the affected area. an affected area is not just where the tide is, but also where the dead fish are that have it in their system as they rot in the sun.
as a way to get away from the beach sceen, we went on a drift fishing trip a good 15 miles away from the beech. hooked a couple bait fish, but nothing was biting no matter where we went. it devastates the entire ecosystem.
if it keeps happening a couple times a year, eventually, it will destroy the entire fishing industry in the gulf of mexico, not to mention change the thriving ecosystem into a dead shell fish flats where you see nothing but....white bellie floaters.
meanwhile, farms are screaming "it isnt us", oil compaines are lobbieng politicians to say "if you cant prove it, you cant say it", and any and all substantial research on why and how it is happening is getting....sponsered.....by one of the two interest groups.
the result? nothing substantial is being done to either prevent it, or even find out exactly why it is happening so frequiently. most conservation groups have been reduced to "reporting" when and where it happens, and not much else. no funding.
god forbid someone loose some money to save an entire ecosystem. we still have chicken, right?
you see words here, but there really is no way for me to describe howdepressing it is. adn not having seen it before myself, i was totally oblivious to anything having to do with it untill i literlaly stepped in it myself. it is happening right now. on our door step. and being mostly ignored. the farmers dont want to hear about it. the oil companies dont want to hear about it. the tourist industry wants to sweep it under the rug. and NO ONE is suggesting we fix it except the conservation groups who will NEVER get any political funding to air our dirty laundry in public when no one wants it seen.
it is really really sad. what i saw was only a tiny portion of the death it caused. the tiny portion that happened to wash up on that small part of shore line on those few particular days, and yet, what i saw was devastation to sea life. sea turtles, giant tarpon, large and small fish of all types. sea rays. eels, so many eels. if it swam, it died.
really depressing. and really no way anything will get done about it...in this country anyway. fortunatly, it happens all over the world in almost every ocean. just not as often as it has been happening here lately. and it may very well be nothing that can be done about it. if its related to global warming, which is possible considering the gulf of mexico is a very warm body of water to begine with, it may, just like the hurricane seasons, just get continually worse no matter what we do.
would be nice to find out though, one way or another.