County will rake Lido Beach Wednesday, marine debris not meeting ‘threshold’ for cleanup

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - Sarasota County Government officials have released an update on red tide in the county as spring breakers flock to the area.

As of March 14, this morning’s monitoring showed improvements throughout Sarasota County, with Lido Key experiencing the most impacts. Due to equipment issues, Lido beach will not be raked until Wednesday. On Monday, crews worked to rake Siesta beach.

The county says at this point, the marine debris threshold is below that which would trigger red tide-related beach cleaning. Multiple residents in Lido have reached out to ABC7 saying that there are a large fish kills on the beach and that the air smells terrible.

Red tide is present at Sarasota County beaches. Each morning, Sarasota County Parks, Recreation and Natural Resources staff evaluate county public beaches and access points to determine if red tide impacts and marine debris wash-up meet the beach cleaning policy threshold. If accumulated debris meets the threshold, mechanical or manual (hand picking, rakes) are deployed.

Steve Huard, the public information officer for DOH-Sarasota is urging beachgoers to showers after going to any of the areas beaches.

“You’ll come out and feel very itchy. If you have any open wounds on your skin it can become infected. We really recommend you take a shower before you leave the beach. But then absolutely when you get home. This is for any beach goer any day red tide or not. You should always shower after a day at the beach,” sad Huard.

You can sign up for red tide alerts by texting the phrase “REDTIDE” to 888777 for text alerts on the latest newsletter.

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