while I am quite a ways south of this -- coming from a long line of families of baymen I can understand what this means to the families of the people who rely on the water for their living. It is not an easy life when things are great but when things like this happen it is disasterous.

Good lord, what a disaster for these fishermen and their families. I wonder if we will ever know what factors led to this outbreak, especially in areas that have never, or rarely have been affected by this algae. It's easy to blame sewage and fertilizer runoff or rare weather patterns but it seems like there is more at play with these wierd disasters lately. Could earth be entering a more dynamic phase? Sorry, I don't want to highjack this thread as this is just an observation but you have to admit these occurences are quite strange as of late.