Edition: U.S. / Global  Troubled Seas: Global Red Tides of Algae
Bring New Fears  Published: May 3, 1988  LATE last August, off
the coast of Naples, Fla., microscopic algae began to reproduce
quickly, thriving and exploding in a matter of days into a huge
toxic bloom that dominated the coastal environment.  Two months
later, the same organism, Ptychodiscus brevis, invaded estuaries
along much of the North Carolina coast.  It turned the waters
yellow, devastated the fishing and tourism economy and caused 41
reported cases of respiratory, gastrointestinal or neurological
illness in people who worked the normally productive waters or
spent time on the area's beaches. North Carolina's bloom is
believed to have traveled north in the Gulf Stream, bypassing
other Southern states.  Some scientists describe it as the
latest outbreak in what they say is a spreading global epidemic
of toxic and nontoxic algae blooms, called red tides. More toxic
tides are being reported worldwide, damaging coastal economies
as they chok