WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As Red tide continues to ravage Florida's coast, spreading to beach areas along the Atlantic, the environmental phenomenon is also becoming tangled up in this year's campaign season.
- Red tide takes center stage in Senate race
- Gov. Scott, Sen. Nelson pointing fingers
- Toxic algae hit Florida's beach leaving behind dead fish
The tidal wave of toxic algae has taken center stage in the Sunshine State's marquee Senate race, spurring the political finger-pointing.
"Pollution is going into our Florida waterways, our lakes, our streams, our rivers," Sen. Bill Nelson (D - Florida) said.
Senator Nelson and environmentalists blame Governor Rick Scott, pointing out that he cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the state water management agency.
Scott accuses Nelson of promising and failing to fund necessary repairs in Lake Okeechobee and continues to defend his environmental record.
"I'm doing everything I can to deal with it," said Gov. Rick Scott at a campaign stop on September 27. "What I've done is declare an emergency, we've provided funding for counties to deal with it."
While elected officials continue to play the blame game -- experts say their claims don't get to the heart of the problem and instead just illustrate how toxic the political environment has become in the Sunshine State.
"The problem of these red tides has been growing over a long period of time," said Elgie Holstein with the Environmental Defense Fund. "The question really becomes is anyone trying to do anything about it."
Holstein, who has held a number of senior positions in government and the private sector involved with environmental policy said there are a number ways to combat the problem.
"Among the things we have to do is clean up the waterways, reduce the amount of runoff that comes off our agricultural fields and pay attention to the connection of the economy on one hand and these environmental insults on the other," Holstein explained.
As red tide and toxic algae have become major talking points of this campaign cycle, experts like Holstein say the majority of politicians have failed to offer long-term solutions.
"It's a tragedy that issues relating to climate change have become such a polarizing issue. We need to work together on this stuff," he said.