Photo courtesy Gruters office: State Reps. Joe Gruters and Margaret Good meet with constituents about red tide.

State representatives from different parties held a town hall this weekend to hear about a problem affecting lives up and down the Gulf Coast. State Reps. Joe Gruters, R-Sarasota, and Margaret Good, D-Sarasota, plan to take the information gleaned to Tallahassee.

About 150 people came to the Saturday event at Suncoast Technical College. “It was a good cross-section of the community—business owners, employees, community members that are sick,” Gruters says. “Our goal was to listen to people’s problems and how they were impacted by this disaster.”

The event focused on the recent harmful algal blooms on the coast, which have at various points closed beaches and impacted businesses relying on beach tourism. As blooms made national headlines, hotels have suffered cancelations, which indirectly impacts retailers and restaurants relying on visitors.

“It was good for us to hear from our constituents,” Good says, "and to hear ideas for solutions both small and large, and both short-term and long-term.”

Gruters says state leaders must find ways to curb pollution into the Gulf of Mexico and area estuaries, and he’d like restrictions on new growth operating on septic tanks instead of hooking into sewer systems.

Good says the state must improve water quality standards, and should also budget more funding toward land acquisition, which could provide more natural filtration of nutrients. “And we need to make sure to appropriately research not just red tide is doing but what we as humans are doing,” she says.

Gruters wants solid science directing policy in Tallahassee. He wants to secure more funding this year for Mote Marine Laboratory to further study the phenomenon. “We try to do that every year, but with the devastation we are having right now, we need to make sure the money is there,” he says.

And while the lawmakers caucus with different parties, the algae problems don't check voter registration before deciding which businesses get impacted and which residents of the region suffer health problems from toxins released in the air.

Photo courtesy Gruters office: State Reps. Joe Gruters and Margaret Good meet with constituents about red tide.