MATLACHA, Fla. — If you're driving through Matlacha, you might smell rotten eggs.
Keith Talbott co-owns Angles Hair Design in Matlacha. He and his wife have owned the property for 35 years. They woke up Tuesday morning to dozens of dead fish along their canal.
"We've had dead fish at the shoreline, many times, not a whole lot... about a dozen times in 30 years," he said.
Tuesday morning Talbott called FOX4 about the issue, so we reached out to Codty Pierce with Calusa Waterkeeper for answers.
"As we are starting to experience higher air and water temperatures, and then we talk about a major rain event like Hurricane Debby that happened last week, there was an immense amount of nutrients in storm water runoff that ends up inside of the estuary," Pierce said.
These nutrients lead to more bacteria. That bacteria then decomposes... and what comes next, stinks.
"When this process happens, this is usually when we start to get this the heavy scent of rotten eggs, this really sulfur smell," he said.
Pierce says the Florida Department of Environmental Protection came out to the site to grab a water sample for testing, but it's likely there is not enough oxygen in the water for the fish.
