NOW_ STLa_MikeSteerSHT_03

ABC NEWS (Australia)

SA research and development institute executive director mike steer has become the public face of south Australia’s lingering harmful algal bloom. His job is to work out what the bloom has done is doing and will do next. As summer fast approaches the government will rely on his advice to plan for how south Australians can safely spend time at the beach.

Transcript

00:01Professor, thanks for joining me.

00:03Thanks for having me.

00:04Is the algal bloom going to ruin summer for beach-loving South Australians?

00:09It's not going to ruin summer, but it's going to, I guess, play a background role

00:15into how we will understand it and adapt to it.

00:19Will South Australians be able to swim at the beach?

00:21Absolutely.

00:22How can you be confident of that?

00:24The actual algae and the biotoxins that are produced by the algae,

00:30they're not significant health concerns.

00:34They can create an irritation for a proportion of the community.

00:40And you tend to only get that when the conditions get choppy, onshore winds.

00:47So the advice is if the water is clear and calm, then there's no problem at all.

00:54However, if it's discoloured or foamy, then there's just a heightened level of awareness to say,

01:00all right, well, if I'm susceptible to itchy eyes or coughing or whatever,

01:06then perhaps I should move somewhere else.

01:08And we see it with surfers, for example.

01:11They're pretty keen to get out and there's no stopping them.

01:17What about fishing?

01:18Should people be mindful or scale back on their fishing this summer?

01:22The fishing one's an interesting issue because the bloom has only really impacted a proportion of that biodiversity.

01:33It tends to, it tends to impact those fish that are inshore, that are side attached, that are coastal.

01:40You know, we've seen impacts on, you know, flathead, leather jackets, sharks and rays.

01:46But there are other species that aren't impacted.

01:49You know, the Western Australian salmon, the fish that live further offshore.

01:54So in terms of saying, you know, stop fishing altogether, it doesn't really make sense

02:01because there are other species out there that are doing relatively well.

02:04These questions about swimming and seafood, they come up a lot.

02:07Is that an indication that public messaging around the algal bloom has been ineffective?

02:12We've not encountered this before, so I can understand that there'd be a level of concern.

02:21And most definitely, we're trying to engage in all the various media and messaging channels where we can.

02:29Because the message is complicated or has a level of complexity,

02:33then we just need to continually try and provide that clear, transparent statements.

02:41To what extent has CIDI been hampered by funding reductions or grant programs that haven't been renewed in the past?

02:47So our role and responsibility as a research provider is to undertake applied research

02:54that's going to benefit the sustainable and economic development of South Australia's primary industries.

02:59We get a level of funding, but we're creative where we can partner with universities, with industry to leverage more funding.

03:10And that's a model that's been happening for CIDI for decades.

03:16In any environment that relies on funding for science, it can be challenging.

03:23However, we consistently step up to that challenge.

03:26We've heard state and federal governments repeatedly blame scientific advice for their slow reaction to this algal bloom.

03:34Is that fair?

03:35To some extent, it's fair because, from a scientific perspective,

03:43is because we, you know, we've experienced a half-way algal bloom in the past in 2014 in Coffin Bay.

03:51And that only lasted a few months.

03:53Should you have been more open in those early days to the possibility that this could extend months or years?

03:59Well, we anticipated when the bloom started in a regional part of South Australia,

04:07that the oceanography and the weather would have dissipated it relatively quickly.

04:12And we kept our eye on it.

04:13I think it caught us all off guard a little bit.

04:17It's probably somewhat unfair to say, you know, we responded late.

04:23This is new for us.

04:25And in terms of our response, there are people working frantically behind the scenes

04:33to understand not only the role of the algal bloom but the ramifications of it to South Australia's communities.

04:39And that's where we are.

04:40That's where we're going to be.

04:41That's where we're going to be.

04:42That's how we get to see.

04:43That's where we're going to be.

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