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What you can do about red tide

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  by Barbara Joy Cooley, Chair of the COTI Environment Committee What can you do about red tide?   There is something.   Maybe you have done it, or are already doing it.   Maybe you haven’t done it yet, but you will – hopefully, soon. What is it that you can do?   Go Native!   Get rid of that green, grassy lawn and replace it with native vegetation.   City of Sanibel guidelines state that at least 75 percent of your yard and garden should be planted with native plants.   To meet the guidelines, only 25 percent can be non-natives. In many ways, green, grassy lawns are the worst of the non-natives because, as City Councilman Dr. Scott Crater stated so clearly on March 7, “You can’t grow grass on sand.   You cannot do it.   It is impossible.   The only way to grow grass on sand is to dump chemicals on the ground.” Those chemicals include nutrients that eventually make their way into coastal waters to feed the red tide algae, contributing to red tide blooms like those that are plag