SEATTLE – One of the largest toxic algae blooms recorded off the West Coast is denser, more widespread and deeper than scientists feared even weeks ago.
Researchers sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration are sampling the Pacific Ocean. They say this algae bloom is flourishing amid unusually warm Pacific Ocean temperatures, and now stretches from at least California to Alaska.
This bloom, as much as 40 miles wide, has severe consequences for the Pacific seafood industry, coastal tourism and marine ecosystems.
Shellfish managers on Tuesday doubled the area off Washington's coast that is closed to recreational and commercial Dungeness crab fishing, after finding elevated levels of marine toxins in tested crab meat.
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