Miami Mayor Francis Suarez Asks Businesses To Stop Pesticide Sales In Effort To Fix Biscayne Bay Fish Kill

MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said it will take a regional approach to fix what led to the fish kill in Biscayne Bay.

"We are also beginning a $1,000 project with inlet filters and pollution control on our storm water system. This will allow us to filter the sediment and the pesticides and ultimately the plastic that ends up in our bay," he said.

Suarez added he is asking local businesses to stop selling pesticides and asking the state for help.

Earlier in the day, Chopper4 saw this so-called "water regeneration vessel" helping to clean up near the Perez Art Museum.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission scientists concluded that low dissolved oxygen levels were spurred by high temperatures and heavy rainfall which are common during the summer months.

County scientists spent Monday sampling water from the bay.

Lee Hefty, the director of Miami-Dade's Department of Environmental Resources Management, came to the same conclusion as FWC.

"It's not related to any toxic algae. It really seems to be high temperature and low dissolved oxygen," said Hefty.

Hefty said the biggest problem in this die off was that the northern half of the bay simply got too hot, which brought oxygen levels down to zero in some places.

"We are seeing a persistence of low levels of oxygen along the western region of the (Julia Tuttle) basin, but we did measure higher oxygen levels today at a station in the more central region of the basin. Staff will be continuing this work tomorrow," added Tere Florin, who is also with Miami-Dade's Department of Environmental Resources Management.