Sargassum (seaweed) pollution — Courtesy: Shutterstock — Bret Reyes
Seaweed blobs that smell terrible are already washing up on Florida’s shores.
According to Brian Lapointe, a research professor at Florida Atlantic University, they’ve “already seen some of this arriving in Key West.”
It’s not simply smelly, he claimed. As more wash up on the shore, it can hurt your health and put you in the hospital.
Lapointe has extensive experience researching water quality and seagrass. He just spoke on a Talk To Tom program with News 6 Chief Meteorologist Tom Sorrells on the extremely huge seaweed swarm that is approaching our state.
According to Lapointe, seaweed will keep washing up on Florida’s shores throughout the spring and accumulate there.
“This is a toxic gas. At high concentrations is a risk to human health, particularly to those with respiratory issues,” he said. “A study a couple of years back in 2018 in Guadeloupe and Martinique reported that — I think it was 11 or 12,000 people were diagnosed in clinics there for having acute exposure to hydrogen sulfide and I’m hearing now reports that pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to the effects of hydrogen sulfide. So it’s just something to be wary of, and know about and educate yourself. You might not want to be in those areas breathing, high concentrations of this stinky gas, this rotten egg odor, when you’re at the beach, adjacent to some of these big piles of Sargassum, that are decomposing.”
Lapointe also mentioned that measures are being done to sink the seaweed before it comes onshore and emphasized what is causing the blob during his conversation on Talk To Tom.
When algae invades their shores, resorts in Mexico, the Caribbean, and Florida all take steps to remove it, either by hiring staff to scoop it by hand or with machinery. It can easily turn into an expensive project. According to the Miami Herald, Miami-Dade County spent $3.9 million on sargassum clean-up last year, an increase of more than $1.1 million from the year before.
The surge of seaweed can obviously be harmful to locals who live close to the coast or who depend on a coastal industry for their livelihoods, in addition to the tourism industry. Sargassum mats can strand boats and have a negative influence on fishing in addition to the unpleasant health effects of big amounts of the beached algae.
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Melissa’s career in writing started more than 20 years ago. Today, she lives in South Florida with her husband and two boys.
