Worst New England Red Tide In Decades Intensifies - Boston Globe

[hatrack]

"New England's worst red tide outbreak in decades has expanded into the waters south of Cape Cod, forcing the closure of the state's most prolific shellfish bed and jeopardizing the all-important summer season for Cape businesses that depend on tourists seeking local seafood.

Officials shut the fertile flats and waters surrounding the Monomoy Natural Wildlife Refuge off Chatham yesterday, after scientists found dangerous levels of the toxic algae bloom. Fishermen reap a rich harvest of clams, oysters, and other shellfish from the area off the elbow of Cape Cod.

With red tide spreading around the tip of the Cape, officials have also closed shellfish beds near Bourne and Wareham in Buzzards Bay for the first time, after the flats there were tainted by red tide passing through the Cape Cod Canal. ''It's devastating. There's thousands of dollars that come off the shellfish grounds a day here," said Wellfleet shellfish constable Andrew Koch. ''Locally, I've never seen anything like this. It's bad."

While Nantucket Sound, Vineyard Sound, and parts of Buzzards Bay remain open, shellfish beds from Central Maine to Cape Cod Bay, as well as waters around Chatham and Pleasant Bay, have been shut down in recent weeks by the unusually virulent outbreak of red tide. State officials said nearly 50 percent of Massachusetts's shellfish beds have been closed."

EDIT

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/06/03/as_red_tide_intensifies_so_do_capes_concerns/

[demnan]

1. Red Tides are so Ugly

all those people going to Cape Cod this summer will be smelling and seeing dead fish on the beach.