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Texas Red Tide Bloom - 2000 - Summary
Texas Parks and WildlifeRed tide of 2000 wrap-up meeting
Scientists, state officials, and other experts from across the state convened Thursday, January 4, to critique the state response to the red tide bloom of 2000. The purpose of the meeting was to evaluate the state response and identify future courses of action. In addition participants received an update on the progress of several research projects being conducted on red tide under contract with Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPW).
RESEARCH UPDATES
TPWD is currently administering an NMFS grant on red tide research and related activities. Several of those working under contract with TPWD were present at the meeting to discuss progress on their projects.
Tracy Villareal with the University of Texas Marine Science Institute led off with a discussion of work he has done monitoring algal communities and water quality in samples collected for him by TPWD Coastal Fisheries staff. Dr. Villareal's presentation is available as a Power Point file, which Cindy Contreras has available for anyone who is interested. He has made some interesting observations about water quality patterns along the Texas coast, looking at nutrients and chlorophyll a. During the 2000 bloom, he found a Gymnodinium species, a "look-alike" to our Texas red tide species Gymnodinium breve. It is unknown how this other species compares in toxicity to G. breve, although it was collected along with G. breve in an area where a fish kill was taking place. Tracy also noted that there was poor correlation of cell counts with water color as seen on MODIS satellite imagery. Therefore we should not assume that discolored water seen in satellite imagery is red tide. Tracy advocated collecting more field data to ground-truth satellite imagery. Tracy is working on a separate contract to identify whether Texas has a separate strain of G. breve with different temperature and/or salinity requirements from the Florida strain, which is well-studied. Early information seems to indicate that Texas G. breve is similar in salinity requirements to the Florida strain.
Sonia Gallegos with the Naval Research Laboratory at the Stennis Space Center presented the progress of her work with Melba Crawford of the University of Texas' Center for Space Research. Drs. Crawford and Gallegos are looking at remote sensing data as a tool to track origins of blooms and eventually develop a way to forecast blooms. They compared satellite data from 1998, a year in which we had no discernable red tide bloom affecting the Texas coast, with data from the 2000 bloom. They found that the Gulf Loop Current stayed east of the 87th meridian in 1998, but swerved west beyond the 89th meridian in 2000. Evidently warm-core rings migrating off the Loop Current came very near to shore in 2000. They found evidence that Sabine River water entered such a ring in the vicinity off Sabine Pass where red tide was first sighted and killed fish in 2000.
Garen Evans, a doctoral student at Texas A&M University, is working with Lonnie Jones of TAMU on an economic impact study of red tide. Dr. Jones was ill and Garen was gracious enough to make the presentation in his absence. Lonnie and Garen have completed a literature review pertaining to the economic impacts of red tides. Based on the paucity of data available to produce a statistical model, they have decided to take a case study approach. The case study will focus on the economic impact of red tide to beach clean-ups, oyster closures, and recreational tourism. They plan to prepare a questionnaire to be used in soliciting economic information from businesses. Garen stated that they hoped to focus on Nueces and San Patricio Counties during the months of September through December 2000. Comments were made that it would not be helpful to look at that area if oyster closures were the concern, since there is relatively little oystering in or near Corpus Christi Bay. An alternative focus on the Galveston Bay and Sabine areas was recommended, since the red tide was intense there for quite some time and did affect oystering economically. This discussion was tabled until next week or a convenient time once Dr. Jones is available and some of the TPWD staff can get together with him and Garen and provide input.
Finally Jay Pinckney with Texas A&M University spoke about his work developing an HPLC method for quantifying the abundance of red tide (G. breve) cells in water samples using a unique biomarker photopigment, gyroxanthin. Dr. Pinckney's presentation is available on the Internet at http://www-ocean.tamu.edu/~pinckney/texhab.htm. He has found that the HPLC method has some application for monitoring the density of blooms, even at very low cell concentrations (< 5 cells/ml). He was able to take advantage of the 2000 bloom due to another field project he was already working on in Galveston Bay. After doing some comparisons with published data from Florida red tide samples, he found evidence that G. breve in Galveston Bay may have a higher concentration of gyroxanthin per cell than the Florida blooms.
Following the presentation there was general discussion to evaluate the state response to the 2000 bloom. Praise was given for these efforts and activities:
- communication about the bloom via email and on the web page
- the Department messages about red tide and its impacts which are conveyed in the news media
- coordination between Texas Department of Health (TDH) and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
- Alan King's enhancement of the TPWD red tide web pages
- Steve Lightfoot's coordination of news releases
- someone even said the response to this bloom was smoother than ever before!
Some things that participants felt needed to be done to improve the state response included:
- producing a report on the 2000 bloom containing information on cell counts, satellite imagery, fish kill counts, analysis of news media coverage, etc.
- working closer with TDH on how TPW can respond to calls from the public about human health concerns (Cindy Contreras will follow up on this)
- see if Texas Shores will publish a red tide issue similar to one they did for the 1986 bloom (Ralph Rayburn will follow up on this)
- a routine monitoring program for harmful algal species
- real-time data availability to agency personnel in a bloom
- a central data warehouse on the web to attach real-time reports and information
- considering how to manage information to avoid increasing the economic impact to local communities vdeveloping satellite information as a planning tool to decide when to sample
- developing the capability to depict the current bloom on maps to aid the public and agency personnel in understanding the location of the bloom
- counting dead fish - when to count and making those numbers
As a final order of business, Dave Buzan spoke about the HABSOS initiative. Dave and others present at the meeting participated in the HABSOS workshop in November-December 2000 in Florida. Dave mentioned some of the initiatives and recommendations coming out of that workshop, which is a federally-supported effort to set up a harmful algal bloom observing system (HABSOS) for the Gulf of Mexico. Some of the items identified include:
- responding more quickly to early reports of blooms
- collecting water samples which can be used to ground-truth satellite data
- collecting water samples to analyze for gyroxanthin
- being prepared to assess economic impacts
- better coordination
- getting microscopes purchased for coastal offices
- TDH offered to help train TPWD staff in counting G. breve cells
Overall a high degree of satisfaction was expressed with the way the state responded to the latest red tide bloom. We have learned a lot over the past few years, and most can agree on several steps we could take to respond to blooms better in the future. Many of the ideas brought forth at this meeting will need to be developed through efforts over the next few months and years. In an effort to continue the momentum of what we have learned and experienced, TPWD will coordinate at least two meetings before September 2001. Participation by scientists, agency personnel, and others will be solicited in following up with some of the ideas from this meeting.
List of Participants and Affiliation:
Tony Reisinger - Sea Grant
Ralph Rayburn - Sea Grant
Lisa Campbell - Texas A&M University
Garen Evans - Texas A&M University
Jay Pinckney - Texas A&M University
Tammi Richardson - Texas A&M University
Tracy Villareal - University of Texas Marine Science Institute
Melba Crawford - University of Texas
Sonia Gallegos - Naval Research Laboratory/Stennis Space Center
Mike Ordner - Texas Department of Health
Gary Heidenmann - Texas Department of Health
Larry McEachron - TPW Coastal Fisheries
Jerry Mambrette - TPW Coastal Fisheries
Charlene Hons - TPW Coastal Fisheries
Dennis Pridgen - TPW Coastal Fisheries
Lance Robinson - TPW Coastal Fisheries
Stephanie Marshalleck - TPW Coastal Fisheries
Karen Meador - TPW Coastal Fisheries
Barbara Dorf - TPW Coastal Fisheries
Steve Lightfoot - TPW Media Services
Alan King - TPW Creative Services
David Buzan - TPW Resource Protection
Michael Weeks - TPW Resource Protection
Winston Denton - TPW Resource Protection
Andy Tirpak - TPW Resource Protection
Cindy Contreras - TPW Resource Protection
Jeffrey Williams - TPW Resource ProtectionCindy Contreras
Water Quality Coordinator
Resource Protection Division
Texas Parks and Wildlife Department4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744(512) 912-7095 phone
(512) 707-1358 fax
cindy.contreras@tpwd.state.tx.us
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us