Local News in Brief : Red Tide Tints Bay Water

Santa Monica Bay has turned colors during the past week as “red tide” drifted in.

“Red tide is basicly dying plankton,” said Tracy Lizotte, a senior county lifeguard. “It’s a natural process that plankton and other sea life like that float up with water currents from the south. They have a tendency to die off as they hit colder water.”

Red tide has settled off the coast between the beach at Torrance and Manhattan Beach, he said. “It’s been here for at least a week and now it’s beginning to dissipate a bit.”

Red tide is not harmful to humans--”I’ve swum in it and I’ve never had anything stick to me,” Lizotte said--but it decreases the food supply for marine life and fish will feed farther offshore until it abates.