Pfiesteria was first discovered in 1991 and has since killed hundreds of millions of fish in North Carolina. State workers have used bulldozers to clear piles of dead menhaden from the beaches. A 1995 outbreak wiped out 14 million fish, temporarily closed parts of the Neuse River, and put 364,000 acres of shellfish beds off limits. Since then, the problem has been spreading. Around the country, outbreaks of pfiesteria and other harmful algal blooms known as red or brown tides are devastating marine life and posing risks for fishermen in bays and estuaries.
Dead sea cows.
In the past two years, a red tide on Florida's west coast has killed 150 manatees, about 10 percent of the state's sea cow population. And in Texas, the Corpus Christi area has been plagued for seven years with a brown tide that kills eelgrass and other underwater vegetation. Their habitat destroyed, the fish have disappeared and, with them, many of the tourists. Scientists view these problems as an urgent warning of the declining health of the nation's 127 ecologically vital and commercially valuable bays and estuaries. Increasing development of coastal areas is sending more sewage effluent, farm runoff, and factory wastewater flowing into bays and estuaries, triggering poisonous algal blooms on all three coasts.