Florida Commercial Fishermen Find Massive 'Black Water' Dead Zone

By Cathy Zollo

Naples Daily News 3-17-2

Commercial fishermen along the Southwest Florida coast are reporting a massive dead

zone that is almost devoid of marine life in an area of the Gulf of Mexico traditionally

known as a rich fishing ground. They've dubbed it black water, and they're demanding that

local, state and national government agencies find out what's causing it. Scientists who have

heard of the phenomenon say they, too, need answers.

"It's killed a lot of the bottom because recently a lot of little bottom plants are coming to the

surface dead and rotten out in the Gulf," said Tim Daniels, 58, a Marathon Key

fish-spotting pilot who has been flying over the Gulf for more than 20 years.

Like Daniels, fishermen with decades on the water say they've often seen red tide but

they've never seen anything like this " it doesn't have a foul smell, it isn't red tide and it isn't

oil. They describe it as viscous and slimy water with what looks like spider webs in it.

First sighted in January, the mass of black-colored water reached from 20 miles north of

Marathon Key halfway to Naples. It stretched west almost 20 miles into the Gulf of Mexico.

Fishermen don't know if it's moved in from the north or offshore or if it originated in the

coastal waters off Southwest Florida.

Though somewhat smaller now than descriptions from January, the mass of water that is

still quite large is moving into the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Created by Congress in 1990, the 2,800-square-mile Sanctuary adjacent to the Keys is the

largest coral reef in the United States. It includes the productive waters of Florida Bay, the

Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

Part of the ecosystem is an extensive nursery, feeding and breeding ground that supports a

variety of marine species and a multimillion-dollar fishing industry that brings in almost 20

million pounds of seafood each year.

Billy Causey, superintendent of the Sanctuary, told the Naples Daily News recently that

there is real concern in the scientific community about the overall health of the Gulf.

Causey said contributing to the problems afflicting the shallow body is global warming,

extended periods when the Gulf waters aren't cooling in the winter, and the growing impact

of human activity along coastlines.

"What we're seeing is part of a bigger picture," Causey said. "We're seeing accelerated

problems around periods of elevated temperatures."

Those problems, beginning in the early 1980s, include more frequent and longer lasting

coral bleaching events that by 1990 were affecting stouter coral reefs closer to shore and

more adapted to wide temperature swings.

"There are places that are still beautiful but the shallow reefs would make you cry," said

Causey, a Keys diver since the 1950s.

Scientists with Mote Marine Laboratory based in Sarasota said they are aware of the black

water phenomenon but hadn't yet been able to test water samples.

Erich Bartels, staff biologist at the Lab's Center for Tropical Research in the Keys, said he'd

only seen samples too old for testing that were brought in by crabbers.

"If you held it up to the light, it had a blackish tint to it," he said. "...If you have black water,

there is something going on. It's some kind of dead zone. We just don't know. We're trying

to get samples."

Mote is willing to send out testing kits to fishermen who might encounter the black water

zone, but Bartels said in the absence of a kit, fishermen could put a sample in a clean bottle

and keep it in a cool, dark place until they could get it to a lab.

Karen Steidinger, senior biology research scientist for the Florida Marine Research Institute

in St. Petersburg, said she hadn't yet heard about the phenomenon. She said there's a

summer release of brown water from the Shark River about 35 miles south of Marco Island,

but she doubted the black water was that. The description relayed to her from fishermen

didn't allow her to speculate on a cause.

Steidinger said samples of the water that had been properly handled would provide the best

answer.

Black water surfaces

Daniels said he first noticed the black water when he went out in mid-January, ahead of

kingfish season, to see what fishermen had in store for 2002.

When he was flying over water that was 50 feet deep and north of the Keys, Daniels began

to notice a change in the water color.

"I thought, 'What in the world is going on here?"' Daniels said. "I went out to the

northwest and it was solid black. And I went to the west to get off of it " out to 70 or 80 feet

of water north of the Marquesas (Islands) " and it was still there. I came back in and turned

north of Key West and it went north. (More than) halfway to Naples from Key West, it was

black across the whole place."

Although there are almost no fish in the zone, Daniels said, the few that fishermen found

there " and other fish that entered the water " reacted strangely.

"You'd see them here and there, but they were jumping and running, not stopping " and

acting different," Daniels said. "Like they didn't want to be there."

Other pilots and fishermen report the same.

Mike Richardson, based out of Everglades City, has been fish-spotting for 25 of his 50

years and said next to the normally green water, the black water stands out like night versus

day.

He's quit flying over it.

"There's no sense going into it," he said. "You can't see anything."

He hasn't seen dead fish in the water, though there have been numerous large fish kills in

recent months off Southwest Florida. Most, according to the Florida Marine Research

Institute, have been attributed to red tide " a naturally occurring microscopic organism in

the water.

Fishermen like Howie Grimm, 42, who has been in the business out of Everglades City

since he was 15, insist the black water isn't red tide.

"It's something totally different from anything I've seen," Grimm said. "We have to figure

out what it is. There's no fish in it. It's like dead water."

Richardson, too, has seen plenty of red tide, whose origins are still not fully understood by

scientists.

"This is not like anything I've ever seen," he said.

When pilots from the air see boats move through a red tide zone, they often cut the reddish

or brownish water to reveal green below.

That doesn't occur in the black water.

"This (dark) stuff goes all the way to the bottom," Richardson said.

Boats that have 4 to 5 feet of hull below the surface cut through 35 to 40 feet of water and

leave nothing but the same black water in their wakes. It's the same at depths of 15 feet, he

said.

"It didn't matter where they ran through it, nothing left a trail," Richardson said.

Grimm has reported the phenomenon to officials from the National Oceanic and

Atmospheric Administration, but said he hasn't heard back yet.

That it's affected the fishery, commercial fishermen have no doubt.

"I've net-fished for mackerel all my life," Daniels said. "This is the first year that we haven't

caught one Spanish mackerel in the Marathon area. They're not there."

The southeast corner of Florida Bay, an area flushed by Atlantic waters, is the only place

fishermen are catching mackerel, and they're doing it with hooks and lines, he said.

Symptoms of a sick Gulf?

Along with the newly discovered black water and coral bleaching, there have been other

problems with the Gulf that have been documented for years.

They include a New Jersey-sized dead zone coming off the Mississippi River outlet to the

Gulf that consumes a larger area each summer.

There are incidences of a contamination known as fibro papiloma in green turtles that live

in Florida Bay.

And now fishermen from Fort Myers Beach to the Keys wonder if there might be new

problems to worry about.

They said there have been bigger fish kills that aren't making it onto government reports.

The largest, many say, occurred late last year about 30 miles off Tampa Bay. It had

shrimpers pulling up netloads of dead and decaying fish off the bottom, they said.

Some shrimpers based on Fort Myers Beach worry that a recent and unexplained slew of

flesh-destroying infections they've seen among their number may be related to problems in

the Gulf.

Charles Bruns, left, and Willie Sherwood, both commercial fisherman out of Fort Myers

Beach, have been affected by a flesh-eating bacteria. The bacteria has been affecting many

fisherman whose home port is Fort Myers Beach.

<mailto:rrblanquart@naplesnews.com>Romain Blanquart/Staff

The infection is diagnosed as cellulitis in three of their medical reports. They say it begins

with a blister on the skin but swells to a large nodule before it erupts and then spreads. It

can only be treated with stout antibiotics.

It was mentioned by fisherman David Wellsley on CenterPoint, a 7 a.m. Sunday radio talk

show hosted by Gary Burris and Ralf Brooks on WNOG-AM 1200 and 1270. Dan Basta,

director of the National Marine Sanctuary program, will be the guest today, along with pilot

Daniels, discussing the black water phenomenon as well as other problems with the Gulf.

Two of the Fort Myers Beach fishermen who suffered the infections are Kevin Flanaghan,

who nearly lost his foot, and Willie Sherwood. They work for different fleets; both run out of

Fort Myers Beach.

Both of them and others say there is fear among laborers in their line of work about the

infection that seems to follow cuts doused with waters from the Gulf.

Many report taking precautions such as bleaching their gear and washing up with

heavy-duty anti-bacterial soap after pulling in their nets.

The fishermen contend it's a new phenomenon. But some boat owners and local health

officials speculated that the fishermen's compromising way of life " the drinking, long-term

exposure to the sun's ultraviolet rays and weeks at sea when they are never dry " is the

culprit for their infections.

The men won't lie about their lifestyles. They admit living from paycheck to paycheck,

partying and drinking " then cleaning up for the most part when they're at sea.

They call it coming off the hill. They'll work for 20 days or more catching fish " and then

spend the money they earn in a few days ashore.

But they also say folks in their line of work have been doing that for decades without the

fear of this sort of infection.

Ray Hoggard, 49, is among the many who say the infection is a hot topic.

"It's common talk on the ship-to-ship radios," he said.

A few times in recent weeks, boats have had to bring in for treatment some men who were

stricken.

"It's a hell of a coincidence or something's up," Hoggard said.

Grant Erickson, 48, owner of Fort Myers' Erickson and Jensen Seafood, has a fleet of eight

boats. He said he, too, hadn't seen the likes of these infections in the business that his family

has been in for a half-century.

"It seems like there's something on the bottom ... these boats (nets) drag the bottom," he

said. "I don't think it's the lifestyle of the fishermen that's changed. If anything it's better

than years past. There's nothing new except the infections."

Dr. Mark Brown, an infectious disease specialist in Naples, said without seeing and testing

the infections there is no way to identify the organism or organisms that caused them.

He said the next logical step would be for someone to do an epidemiological study of the

fishermen to compare them to a control group to find out what's causing the infections.

Unless doctors are culturing the bug to see what it is, they may never find out, Brown said.

"They need to find out if they all have the same bug," Brown said. "They're going to have

to try harder to make a microbiological diagnosis of what germ is causing this. . . They may

not even be looking."

Health officials from Lee County, where the affected fisherman are based, said they

investigate any of more than 70 communicable diseases and any odd health-related

occurrence.

"We need to gather a lot of information," said Dr. Judith Hartner, director of the Lee

County Health Department. "The first step is somebody needs to report it."

Three doctors who've seen the affected men said they didn't culture the organism that

caused the infection.

Brown said the symptoms of the infection " the swelling, fast pace and flesh-destroying

nature as reported by the fishermen " sounds like Vibrio vulnificus, a common seagoing

organism. However, he didn't speculate on why or if it might be on the rise among

fishermen.

According to a Johns Hopkins University Web site, the bug frequents areas where the

water temperature remains high throughout the year and are most abundant in summer. The

infection progresses at a rapid pace and can be fatal.

Hartner said her agency needs to answer a number of questions before deciding if the

infections warrant investigation.

"Do the fishermen think it's unusual?" she asked. "If we do an investigation and we find

out the cause, is there anything we can do to prevent it? We don't know that it's on the rise.

It could be coincidence."

© 2002 Naples Daily News. All rights reserved Published in Naples, Florida. A Scripps

newspaper

The Black Water we encountered in NJ back in 1976 was due to a massive algae

bloom of Ceratium Tripos that killed an area of ocean and bottom the size of the

state of NJ before it dissipated.

Unusual winds kept polluted Hudson River water recirculating over the sewage

sludge dumpsites 8 miles off in the Atlantic. Before anyone knew it a never

before seen massive algae bloom had filled the NY-NJ Bite. Then the algae died

,sank to the bottom,decayed ,ate up all the oxygen during decomposition,and

turned the ocean bottom and the water BLACK.

This documented phenomenon led to the Anti sewage sludge dumping laws in

the Marine Protection ,Research and Sanctuaries Act. I and many others helped

lead this fight.The biggest mistake we made was NOT TO EXCLUDE ANY

SEWAGE WASTEWATER from being discharged into the ocean as its effects

are the same as dumping sludge (a 4 % solution of solids and wastewater).We

All Need to Stop this Horrendous practice!

The good that came from this was that it was visible,unlike the insidiously slow

poisoning that occurs on a daily basis. Out of sight ,out of mind.

Maybe this Blackwater phenomenon will get all of the Florida officials to wake

up and work with the people as was the case back in 76. Prior to the kill no one

listened to a handful of divers and fisherman and locals.

ANY WATER DISCHARGED INTO THE OCEAN That hasn't been totally

cleansed ,total Tertiary treatment,total reverse Osmosis,will continue to kill as

the volumes per day discharged are overwhelming and so much other harmful

contamination is present ( USGS study)

AWT doesn't even come close to cleansing the 99% other marine and human

toxic pollutants.Officials waste taxpayers time and money with this

nonsense,but they are locked into it by the Antiquated state plan as though that

is a correct plan.

The alternative to expensive tertiary treatment in a central sewage plant is

getting all homes off the " DISCHARGE PIPE" over time, and using in home,No

Discharge Technology.

Waterless or composting toilets combined with reuse technology (uses small

reverse osmosis units with filtration).

Surely we live in a country where we can come up with the proper technology

and philosophy yet not one town.no state is researching this thoroughly with

enough time and effort!(out of sight,mind)

Presently your officials cant do anything unless you all get after them !The plan

that Fl. State has mandated for the Keys and the rest of Florida is INADEQUATE

AND OUTDATED for the reasons as stated above. My letters of the last 3 days

have been discussing the new USGS studies on pollutants not removed by

AWT such as Hormone Disruptors,Medicines,hormones,detergents,

pesticides ,herbicides,microbiocides,found in major bodies of water receiving

wastewater.

Its time for everyone to contact your Governor on down,All members of

Congress as it is a National problem,with visible problems occurring in just

about every state that has a body of water next to it or in it receiving the silent

killer of wastewater.

Pat Yananton