Florida Sportsman temporarily closes Stuart office; algae bloom making staff sick

Tyler Treadway | Treasure Coast Newspapers

Florida Sportsman magazine has closed its Stuart office because a nearby blue-green algae bloom appeared to be making staffers sick.

A dead-end canal off the South Fork of the St. Lucie River runs along the north side of the magazine office on Kanner Highway. Wednesday, the canal was covered in bright green algae with numerous patches turning brown or light blue, signs the algae is dying.

A pungent rotting smell came off the bloom, especially in the bright sun.

"It smells like death," Publisher Blair Wickstrom said as he walked along the canal.

Wickstrom closed the office Tuesday. Staffers began complaining last week about respiratory problems, itchy eyes and runny noses, he said.

"Me, I felt nauseous," he added. "I ate 10 Tums on Monday and another 10 Tuesday. It wasn't worth the risk to make people come here to work when we didn't know what kind of health issues, both short-term and long-term, they were facing."

Algae started building up in the canal two weeks ago, Wickstrom said, "but it wasn't the matted blue-green stuff that's there now."

The bloom next to the magazine office "is worse than what we had here in 2005 and 2016," Wickstrom said. "Maybe we're just the unfortunate victims of winds and tides that happened to bring it here; or maybe it's going to get worse all over the river, and we're just the first ones to see it."

Since June 1, when the Army Corps of Engineers began discharging Lake O water to the St. Lucie River, TCPalm has compiled a list of 68 reported algae blooms in the St. Lucie River, the canal connecting Lake O to the river and the Indian River Lagoon.

The list includes the bloom next to Florida Sportsman. A DEP crew took a water sample at the bloom at 2 p.m. Monday. Results of tests to see if the algae contains toxins were not available Wednesday morning.

Several of the blooms have tested positive for the toxin microcystin, which is known to cause nausea and vomiting if ingested; rash or hay fever symptoms if touched or inhaled; and liver disease if drank.

More: Blooms in 2016 contained 28 kinds of blue-green algae

During the 2016 algae bloom, tests commissioned by Martin County found very low levels microcystin in the air around a blue-green algae bloom at Central Marine on the north shore of the river at Stuart.

An Ohio State University study found people living in areas with significant blue-green algae blooms, including the Treasure Coast, are more likely to die from nonalcoholic liver disease than those who don't.

More: Study links blue-green algae blooms with fatal liver disease

A growing number of scientists believe another toxin in blue-green algae, known as BMAA (Beta-N-Methylamino-L-alanine), can trigger neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease, many years after exposure.

More: Health risks of blue-green algae toxins unknown

The magazine's editorial and advertising staffs can work off-site for a while, Wickstrom said. In two weeks, the next issue has to be put together, "and that's going to be a problem to do remotely. We'll just have to wait and see what the office situation is then."

The magazine was founded by Wickstrom's father, Karl Wickstrom, who wrote and worked tirelessly with the Rivers Coalition and other organizations statewide to stop the Lake Okeechobee discharges that cause massive algae blooms in the St. Lucie.

Karl Wickstrom died June 25 at age 82.

More: Florida Sportsman founder Karl Wickstrom dies

"Dad would have wanted this in a way," Blair Wickstrom said. "He said you couldn't get people engaged unless there was a disaster. So it's kind of ironic that he passes, and a month later there's a blue-green algae bloom at his doorstep ... not that I'm saying he's up there pulling some strings."



