Dead fish wash up along the beach on Padre Island, Texas. The fish are being killed by several red tide blooms that are affecting the waters in the Corpus Christi area.

FORT WORTH, TEX. ? Marine biologists hope a cold front forecast for this week will help dissipate a toxic red tide alga that has affected a 60-mile stretch of Texas coastline, killing several thousand fish and irritating the eyes and lungs of anglers and beachgoers.

Officials are tracking patches of red tide algae, which cause red- or maroon-colored “blooms.” They have been spotted from the outer coast of Matagorda Island to about 10 miles inside the Padre Island National Seashore, near Corpus Christi.

The blooms, first spotted Sept. 29, have littered beaches with decaying fish, turning off tourists, especially on windy days when surf spray carries irritants from the algae, said Mark Fisher, science director for the coastal fisheries division of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

Because the red tide alga thrives during hot days, biologists hope a cold front expected Thursday will kill off the blooms, Fisher said.

While there is no concern that the current red tide spread ultimately will poison seafood, it still can hurt tourism and fishing industries, said Meridith Byrd, “harmful algae bloom coordinator” for the Parks and Wildlife Department.

Since 1986, red tide algae have killed 50 million fish along the Texas coast, Byrd said. And, in 2000, a three-week infestation in Galveston Bay cost that area $18 million in tourism, beach cleanup and a halt to harvesting shellfish such as oysters, mussels, clams and whelk, she said.