The Hillsborough River provides habitat for a variety of wildlife and drinking water for the City of Tampa. Photo courtesy of Kailey Aiken.
Editor’s Note: This article was first published by Creative Loafing on March 7, 2026.
Tampa’s annual River O’Green Fest returns Saturday, March 14, but not everyone is looking forward to it.
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By Kailey Aiken
Each spring, the Hillsborough River glows an unnatural shade of green as part of Tampa’s River O’Green Fest. For many, it’s a beloved St. Patrick’s Day tradition. For others, it’s a poor use of resources to alter one of the city’s most important waterways.
Despite assurances from city officials that the kelly green colored dye is safe to use for the one-day event, local fishermen and environmentalists say it’s harmful to the river’s wildlife and promotes the wrong idea about respecting the environment.
The tradition began in 2012 under Mayor Bob Buckhorn and has continued every year since, except during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021.
Each year, about 250 pounds of dye produced by Ohio-based Kingscote Chemicals is mixed with roughly 280 gallons of water and sprayed into the river. The dye, appropriately named Bright Dyes® FLT Yellow-Green Powder, transforms the water into a bright neon green.
According to the company’s safety sheet for the product, the dye is biodegradable, nontoxic, and “does not meet hazardous criteria set forth by the 2012 OSHA Hazard Communication Standard.” However, its recommended use is for “water tracing & leak detection dye,” and makes no mention of being used to turn entire rivers green.
In 2023, Captain Dustin Pack launched the “Stop Dyeing the Hillsborough River Green” petition to raise awareness about opposition to the city’s river-dyeing tradition. The petition has earned more than 7,000 signatures, with numbers on the rise as the event approaches.
Pack, a local fisherman, said when the river suddenly turns neon green, it alters how fish and other animals hunt, feed, and navigate in their environment. Essentially, the dye disrupts their normal behaviors and processes.
“If you’re in your living room and all of a sudden your living room turns neon green, it wouldn’t be normal for you,” Pack said.
Since the dye is described as a tracer dye meant to be used in tiny amounts (parts per billion) to locate leaks in pipes, it should not be used to color an entire river, Pack explained. The product’s safety sheet also lists an environmental precaution stating: “Prevent from entering into soil, ditches, sewers, waterways, and/or groundwater.”
Chris Pratt, a senior environmental manager for the water division from the Environmental Protection Commission (EPC), said the environmental precaution on the safety sheet is the one statement that hangs people up.
“If you had a bulk of this stuff and you just tried to use it indiscriminately, and didn’t use it as per their manufacturers’ directions, there could perhaps be some problems there,” Pratt said.
Pratt said he appreciates Pack’s and other environmentalists’ concerns for the river, but that the EPC has no objections to dyeing the river.
“We’ve looked into the Material Safety Data Sheets, and all the literature behind it, the history behind it and the EPA has not found it to be in violation of the Clean Water Act,” Pratt said. “So EPC’s stance is that we’re, we’re neutral. We don’t advocate for the event, but we also don’t have any objections to doing it.”
The EPC has 16 monitoring stations across the lower Hillsborough River, where they conduct monthly water samples.
“In all the years that this has been going on, we have not seen any detrimental effects to the river or to wildlife or reports following the event,” Pratt said.
Pack, on the other hand, holds that whether or not the dye is “detrimental” to the river’s health, it is still doing a disservice to it and sending the wrong message to younger generations about how we should be treating the environment.
“It gets filled with trash. It gets filled with stormwater. It gets filled with nutrients. It gets filled with green stuff, and then we’re treating it like a retention pond in a subdivision, not like a 27,000-year-old body of water that we get our drinking water from,” Pack said.
The Downtown Partnership, which helps run the River O’Green Fest each year, did not respond to a request for comment from Campus Life.
In a statement shared with FOX 13, Kenyetta Hairston Bridges, President & CEO of the Tampa Downtown Partnership, said, “We’re thrilled once again to partner with the City of Tampa and Grow Financial to bring one of the region’s largest St. Patrick’s Day celebrations to life. This family-friendly event draws thousands of residents and visitors into Downtown, boosting support for our local small businesses and showcasing the vibrancy and energy that define our urban core.”
Aside from the dyeing of the river, the River O’Green Fest includes a variety of other activities for guests to enjoy, such as food trucks, live music and dance performances, and a parade.
“I just feel like it’s not necessary to dye the river,” said Pack. “Why do you have to do that to have a party?”