Red tide leaving trail of dead fish on Texas beaches

TITLE: Red tide leaving trail of dead fish on Texas beaches

BYLINE: Dane Schiller

CREDIT: Express-News Border Bureau

EST. PAGES: 2

DATE: 10/04/97

DOCID: SAEN219282

SOURCE: San Antonio Express-News; SAEN

EDITION: Final; SECTION: A Section; PAGE: 01A

CATEGORY: News - Texas

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND - David Rocha, a city employee on this beach resort, never fancied himself a funeral director for fish.

With a bright blue tractor and a paper respiratory mask, Rocha has become just that. As the sun baked the normally pristine shore here this week, Rocha was rumbling along the white sand looking for washed-up fish bodies.

For just over a week now dead fish here have outnumbered sunbathers or surfers by what seemed to be a 10,000-to-1 ratio, thanks to a nasty seaborne algae that again is triggering a condition known as red tide.

Millions of the algae are blooming off Texas' lower coast, releasing waves of toxins that have paralyzed about 7 million fish, leaving them unable to swim and, therefore, powerless to breathe.

On one end of Rocha's tractor was a massive rake used to scrape the latest victims of red tide off the sand. On the other end was a shovel for digging holes to bury the fish.

"We're trying to keep the beach clean and safe," said Ray Kendall, South Padre Island's city manager.

"We don't want the world to think there's a black plague here. There isn't," Kendall said.

And the city could soon be out of the burial business. State officials said Friday that most of the fish that were in dangerous areas have already died and washed ashore.

"No new fish are coming in and getting killed," David Buzan, team leader for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department's kills and spills team, said by phone from Austin.

But Buzan said the algae bloom, which has left red patches of water from here to Matagorda Bay, was still lingering offshore.

"We're certainly hesitant to say there's not a problem," Buzan said.

"Our general assessment from the air is that it has not changed a lot," he said of the size and location of the bloom.

To counter the bloom, it will either take harsh winds or a strong current to sweep the tide from the area.

Various biologists made helicopter flights over the region this week and collected water samples from nearby Laguna Madre.

As the wind whips across the water, it blows an aerosol toward the shore, leaving many folks along the beach with hacking coughs, watery eyes and a raw feeling in their throats and chests.

Stores report a run on throat lozenges, and people seemed to be coughing everywhere.

"I woke up this morning and felt like I couldn't breathe. It's such a shame," said a woman who had tried to camp on the beach with her family.

"Anyone who says this red tide isn't bad is getting cold coffee," said hostess Dorothy Barsz, 74, as she worked her way through the breakfast crowd at a local restaurant.

Still, a lucky cadre seem largely unfazed by the air, and small groups of visitors managed to sunbathe and wade in the surf here this week in spite of the latest infestation.

"It's like anything else in life: you just get used to it," said Debi Naramore, 38, an engineer who works in nearby Matamoros, Mexico.

"It's still a beautiful ocean and a beautiful beach," said Naramore as she lay a few yards from where a tractor had just raked some fish.

Along another stretch of sand a man walked along the shore with a small child riding on his shoulders.

"Not a problem," he said of the air and tide.

Cynthia Contreras, another biologist on the kills and spills team, said the effect of red tide on humans seems to be about the same as allergies: some people feel it more than others.

"It's anybody's guess as to whether it will go away or get worse," Contreras said.

While the city of South Padre Island keeps crews roaming the beaches to scoop up fish, a few miles up the beach and outside city limits, thousands of dead fish and eels were splayed out.

There were speckled trout, redfish, mullet and even croakers as far as the eye could see.

Hudson DeYoe, an algae specialist with the University of Texas- Pan American at Edinburg, waded into the surf and filled plastic bottles with samples of the water.

"It's mostly an academic curiosity," DeYoe said. "There'll be the usual list of suspects for red tide."

But Rachel Robinson, a tourist from Yorktown on vacation, was less than impressed with the red tide situation.

"I hate it. It's a reminder that a time comes when everything must die," said Robinson, who was walking the beach for exercise.

"I never seen anything like this," said Jerry Polston, 42, vacationing from Kansas City, Mo.

"It's almost oppressive. I'm going to spend the day inside," said Polston, who had wanted to run along the shore, but said the air made it impossible for him.

There were fewer problems for those away from the shoreline who went about their business on the still-bustling streets here.

City Manager Kendall concedes that the air is an inconvenience for some folks, including his dog, but said it hasn't kept him from his morning walks.

"It's not going to hurt you; it's just an irritation," he said of the air.

ART: Caption: PHOTOS: JOHN DAVENPORT / Staff; EXPRESS-NEWS GRAPHIC;

Dead fish pile up on the beach at South Padre Island as a stroller takes in the early morning sun. Waves of toxins, known as the red tide, have paralyzed more than 7 million fish and left them dead on south Texas beaches.; Above, a woman walks by as a South Padre Island city tractor cleans the beach of dead fish that succumbed to red tide in the Gulf of Mexico. Left, the red tide has claimed about 7 million fish.; Red tide outbreak.