TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — The smell of dead fish belied the look of the place — the perfect portrait of a lazy summer day at Ballast Point Park.
But at the watery edge of the park, along the Hillsborough Bay shoreline, hundreds of rotting fish and rusty red algae pooled among the mangroves, riprap and iconic Bayshore Boulevard balustrade.
State investigators are testing whether the culprit is red tide, as it has been with fish kills along Pinellas County’s waterways, perhaps fueled by wastewater from an old Port Manatee fertilizer plant.
The fish began to bob to the Tampa Bay surface in early June.