00:01It was one of the first signs of environmental catastrophe.
00:05See, that's what a dead oyster looks like.
00:08Steve Bowley's South Australian oyster operation was forced to close for eight months last year because of a toxic algal
00:15bloom.
00:16His farm is back up and running, but the impacts of the bloom on marine life haven't gone away.
00:23The environment here is broken.
00:26It's because of a species of algae never seen before in Australia which produces brevitoxins.
00:33We've never had brevitoxins, so just our detection of brevitoxins is a trigger for a full investigation.
00:41But it took the South Australian government four months from the discovery of the toxin in oysters to change its
00:47health advice for asthmatics.
00:49One thing that's more important than speed is getting it right, particularly when we talk about public health measures.
00:55In Adelaide South, Kerry Sutton says she was successfully managing her chronic lung condition before the bloom.
01:03Now, if I go outside and there's any, doesn't even have to be much of a breeze, the eyes start,
01:11the lungs are really tight.
01:13The state government denies her symptoms are directly linked to the algal bloom and says they aren't consistent with the
01:20published literature.
01:22You don't have any faith in the government, do you?
01:24As experts predict climate disasters will become more frequent and intense, this algal bloom is a warning to the nation.
01:32Ella, you know the issue that fits slim, I guess which takes a lot of pattern into the nation.
01:33On this side, the assumption is that preventing people being more frequent mit of some evidently fear,
01:35This is like a unintentional ingredient that may glutton Aussie,
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