The federal government has thrown its support behind a state battling a massive, toxic algal bloom that has devastated the marine environment, but says the crisis cannot officially be declared a natural disaster.
The bloom of the microalgae species karenia mikimotoi was identified off South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula in March, and grew to more than 4400 sq km, close to the size of Kangaroo Island.
It has been breaking up in recent weeks, spreading north into Spencer Gulf, south into the Coorong wetlands and along Adelaide’s beaches in Gulf St Vincent into the Port River, killing tens of thousands of marine animals.
Environment Minister Murray Watt said the bloom and its impacts were “incredibly disturbing”, as he announced a $14 million federal funding package for the SA government.
The money is likely to be used to pay for the clean-up of dead marine life from SA’s beaches, support impacted businesses, bolster community awareness about the bloom and invest in science and research to better understand the incident.
“There’s no doubting whatsoever that this is a very serious environmental event facing South Australia,” Mr Watt told reporters on Monday.
“We are in uncharted waters here.”
Asked if the bloom and its impact should be declared a natural disaster, Mr Watt said it was not possible under the existing definition despite calls from scientists, the Greens and SA’s Labor premier.
A natural disaster declaration would trigger special federal assistance measures to support individuals, businesses and communities in their recovery.
“We have managed outside the usual natural disaster framework to marshal the type of resources that South Australia has asked for,” Mr Watt said.
“One of the difficulties has been understanding exactly what its impacts are and what sort of response is required.
“We won’t solve this overnight and we are, to some extent, relying on weather conditions to help disperse the algal bloom.”
The algal bloom is naturally occurring, but the state’s environment department has listed potential contributing factors including a marine heatwave that started in 2024, when sea temperatures were about 2.5C warmer than usual, combined with calm conditions.
Another was the 2022/23 River Murray flood that washed extra nutrients into the sea followed by an unprecedented cold-water upwelling in the summer of 2023/24 that brought nutrient-rich water to the surface.
Marine ecologist Dominic McAfee said the mortality in most heavily impacted areas was “extremely confronting”.
“It seems like almost everything has died,” Dr McAfee, from the University of Adelaide’s Environment Institute, told AAP.
“We don’t know how long it’s going to go on, and so the impacts we’re seeing now could just be the start of something more prolonged.”
Dr McAfee said it was hoped winter winds and swells would “disperse and nullify” the algae bloom, but it hadn’t happened.
“It seems to be more resilient than anticipated … it’s still at high fatal concentrations for a lot of marine life, and we’re still seeing marine life wash up,” he said.
“And there’s a chance that it will continue for many more months.”
Authorities previously said the algae had killed tens of thousands of marine animals from almost 450 species.
Dr McAfee said it was the “tip of the iceberg” because the project monitoring the deaths only recorded species washed ashore, and it would not have accounted for smaller vertebrates and less well-known species.
“There are little bits of resilience as well … so it’s understanding how those resilient pockets of the ecosystem persist through the bloom,” he said.
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