The University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science recently completed a study using a robotic water glider that confirms circulation changes in the Gulf brought cooler temperatures and salt to shore thus creating a severe red tide bloom that affects all Florida coasts.
Two Florida counties located north of Lake Okeechobee hired AECOM to deploy a custom-built, mobile algae harvesting unit that separates algae biomass from water. Once harvested, it converted the recovered algae into two streams: a dense algae biomass that becomes a solid and a second that filters the greenbrown algae water into a clear water stream.
Mote Marine Laboratory and Aquarium is researching the benefits of several remedies to red tide including the use of “living dock” structures that would be covered with filter-feeding animals to remove red tide from canals; Ozonation to destroy red tide algae and their toxins in limited areas; and the use of algae in the Amoebophrya genus to serve as a natural control parasite for K. brevis red tide blooms.