FL Leg Moves $18 M No-Bid Bills For Red Tide Research; Fertilizer Corp. Among Lab's Sponsors

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This year a pair of bills are promising an investment in red tide mitigation to the tune of $3 million per year for six years. As of Tuesday, both bills had passed unanimously through their first two committee stops, but environmentalists from the Sierra Club and the University of Miami are not so keen on the plan.

The investments award the money to Mote Marine Laboratory, a Sarasota research nonprofit, with the goal of creating a partnership with the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, instead of opening a process that would allow other research agencies, colleges or universities to bid for the funds. Mote, critics say, focuses too much on mitigation and doesn’t do enough to prevent red tide.

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In 2018, Mote established the Red Tide Institute to study mitigation and control, thanks to a generous Longboat Key couple. Later that year, the state invested over $2 million in the testing and development of red tide mitigation, including technology being developed by Mote. The twin bills give some environmentalists pause. Mote, environmentalists say, needs to spend more time and resources on prevention. If they don’t, the negative effects will be “foisted upon taxpayers,” they say.

Cris Costello, of Sierra Club, said the group is “sidestepping” from the science that shows human waste and agricultural runoff feed the nutrient loads that instigate much of the pollution. She pointed out Mote’s relationship with companies like Mosaic, which produces a commonly used phosphorus-based fertilizer that creates solid waste and polluted water. Mosaic is listed as a corporate sponsor on Mote’s website. “Both the polluters and Mote win with this narrative,” Costello said. “Mote wins because they get money. The polluters win because the focus is not on the source of the nutrient pollution, but rather on control and mitigation.”

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https://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/2019/04/09/lawmakers-jump-to-fund-red-tide-research-but-some-environmentalists-are-wary/