seaweed - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T15:37:21Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/seaweedAlong the Coast: Sargassum, turtle-nesting and storm seasons collidehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-sargassum-turtle-nesting-and-storm-seasons-collid2023-05-31T19:02:15.000Z2023-05-31T19:02:15.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11202657685,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11202657685,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="11202657685?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>Nathan Hecker fishes from the beach in Gulf Stream as Clayton Peart, president of Universal Beach Services Corp., rakes and buries sargassum. He has a contract with private property owners. <strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11204248079,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11204248079,RESIZE_400x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="266" alt="11204248079?profile=RESIZE_400x" /></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>By Jane Musgrave</strong></p>
<p>When Tom Fitzpatrick arrived at Delray Municipal Beach early one Saturday in mid-May, he was stunned to see it covered with thick brown seaweed.</p>
<p>Although he had heard about a giant blob lurking offshore and had occasionally seen clumps of the stuff dotting the beach, he said the sheer volume was shocking.</p>
<p>“I’ve never seen it so bad,” Fitzpatrick said. “They’ve got to figure it out.”</p>
<p>For the last several months, officials in Palm Beach County’s southernmost coastal communities have been trying to do just that.</p>
<p>Pointing to a record-breaking 13 million-ton belt of seaweed stretching 5,000 miles from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of Africa, marine scientists are predicting Florida’s east coast beaches will be inundated this summer with the particular type of macroalgae known as sargassum.</p>
<p>Anticipating their phones will light up with complaints from oceanside residents and beachgoers, officials in Delray Beach, Ocean Ridge and other beachside communities began exploring what, if anything, they could do to prepare for a possible onslaught.</p>
<p>With the exception of Ocean Ridge, the answer came back: Not much.</p>
<p>While it might be unsightly and smelly, sargassum is important to marine life, particularly the millions of baby sea turtles that will begin emerging from the thousands of nests along county beaches in the coming months, experts say.</p>
<p>Further, other communities have discovered that raking sargassum into piles and trying to cart it away caused bigger problems, said Delray Beach Public Works Director Missie Barletto. Not only do piles of seaweed become smellier and more obtrusive, but removal is expensive. </p>
<p>Miami-Dade County estimated it could spend as much as $6 million removing sargassum from its beaches this year.</p>
<p>If huge waves of sargassum begin arriving in southern Palm Beach County, steps can be taken then, Barletto advised Delray Beach commissioners at a meeting on May 16. </p>
<p>“So much of whether it’s a problem on the beach or not is dependent on wind direction and wave action,” she said. “It’s not one of those things that I think you can have significant plans for in advance. You kind of have to deal with it when it happens.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Economic harm possible</span></p>
<p>Stephen Leatherman, a professor of coastal science at Florida International University who is known as “Dr. Beach” for his annual Top 10 list of beaches nationwide, isn’t sure waiting is the best approach. </p>
<p>He noted that the presence of sargassum stripped all beaches along Florida’s east coast from his Top 10 list this year. The potential economic impact from loss of tourism could be devastating, he said.</p>
<p>“Sargassum is a monster and South Florida has a bull’s-eye on it,” he said. “We’ve got to find something to do with it.”</p>
<p>Palm Beach County environmental experts recommend sargassum be left to the whims of Mother Nature. Tides will either carry it back to sea or it will rot away, said Andy Studt, supervisor of coastal resources management for the county’s Department of Environmental Resources Management.</p>
<p>“The county takes very much a hands-off approach,” he said. “We leave it in place.”</p>
<p>While sharing Studt’s view of sargassum’s important ecological benefits, Delray Beach and Boca Raton don’t completely follow the county’s lead.</p>
<p>Both cities use tractors to rake their public beaches and bury the seaweed in the sand.</p>
<p>“So, we don’t remove it,” said Samuel Metott, Delray’s director of parks and recreation. “But for visitors of the beach, it kind of disappears a little bit. It just looks like a darker, shadier portion of the sand.”</p>
<p>While Delray hires a private company, spending $78,000 annually, Boca Raton uses city crews. A Boca Raton spokeswoman said city officials are lining up an outside company to respond if masses of sargassum become too much to handle.</p>
<p>At the urging of Vice Mayor Steve Coz, Ocean Ridge is considering hiring a firm to rake its beaches.</p>
<p>Not only would raking remove the seaweed, but, more important, it could help the town solve an even thornier problem: erosion.</p>
<p>Having lived in Ocean Ridge since 1985, Coz said he has watched the shoreline shrink. If the dune is breached, “we could be in serious trouble.”</p>
<p>Sargassum could be raked from the beach and pushed up along the dunes to stabilize them, he said. Although town officials embraced his proposal at a meeting on May 1, obstacles remain.</p>
<p>A permit must be obtained from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Also, because the town operates no public beach, private landowners would have to give their OK.</p>
<p>Town Manager Lynne Ladner said she is awaiting approval from the state agency. Coz said oceanfront landowners in a 200-foot “test area” at the beach access point at the end of Woolbright Road have agreed to pay for the raking.</p>
<p>With the six-month hurricane season underway, Coz said the town must act quickly. “If a real storm comes in there … we could be in serious trouble, like serious trouble, if that dune is washed away any further.”</p>
<p>Despite their hands-off approach, county officials said some steps can be taken if the predicted deluge of sargassum materializes.</p>
<p>For example, the seaweed can be raked by hand to create pathways so beach-lovers can reach their beloved shore, Studt said. “In an extreme event, it could be piled up to a point,” he said.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}11203558665,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}11203558665,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="11203558665?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>A sea turtle nest is cordoned off on the beach at Ocean Ridge. Beach rakers work around the marked-off areas when clearing sargassum from the shore. J<strong>erry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">A lifeboat for hatchlings</span></p>
<p>The simultaneous arrival of the sargassum and sea turtle nesting seasons creates a unique set of problems. Once nesting season began on March 1, rakers were required to consult sea turtle watchers before combing the beach.</p>
<p>Sea turtle nests are protected. Palm Beach County is traditionally one of the state’s top destinations for the threatened and endangered species. Loggerhead, green, leatherback and sometimes hawksbill and Kemp’s ridley turtles flock to the county to lay their eggs.</p>
<p>“Palm Beach County has about 40,000 nests each year which produce millions of eggs and hatchlings,” Studt said.</p>
<p>For hatchlings that make it to the sea, sargassum is their lifeboat. They float in the seaweed, which captures small creatures they can eat. “It’s their refuge,” he said.</p>
<p>“It’s super important for hatchling survival,” said Lexie Dvoracek, conservation program manager for Sea Turtle Adventures. “Without it, they don’t have a habitat to protect them.”</p>
<p>The nonprofit monitors nesting activity in a roughly 3-mile stretch from George Bush Boulevard in Delray Beach to Woolbright Road in Ocean Ridge.</p>
<p>Some worry that mounds of sargassum will make it difficult for hatchlings to make their already arduous journey to the ocean. Dvoracek said that last year workers found a few hatchlings that looked like they may have gotten stuck in the seaweed.</p>
<p>But, she said, a bigger problem is the well-meaning, but misguided, people who pick up the tiny turtles and drop them in the ocean. Instead of helping the creatures, they unwittingly doom them because the turtles aren’t yet strong enough to swim.</p>
<p>“Just leave them and call us,” she advised, adding that touching hatchlings is a federal offense.</p>
<p>Other human influences, such as lights west of the beach, are a greater threat to hatchlings than sargassum, Studt said. Artificial light can confuse them.</p>
<p>“When hatchlings come out of the nest, they are looking for the starlit point on the horizon,” he said. “Their natural instinct is to go to the light.”</p>
<p>Both Dvoracek and Studt said they have seen no evidence that sargassum blocks adult sea turtles from coming ashore to dig their nests. International research is ongoing.</p>
<p>So far, Dvoracek said it appears this will be a banner year for turtle nesting. As of late May more than 110 nests had been made on the stretch her group monitors, roughly double the number counted at this time last year.</p>
<p>The nests included one dug by a Kemp’s ridley turtle. The rarest and most endangered species of sea turtle, the Kemp’s ridley normally nests in Texas and Mexico, she said.</p>
<p>“We’re very excited,” Dvoracek said of the nest that was discovered on April 30. “Florida sees less than 20 annually. It’s the first one we’ve seen in our area in 25 years.”</p>
<p>Like others, she is cautiously optimistic that this year won’t bring record amounts of sargassum to shore.</p>
<p>As Fitzpatrick and other beachgoers have already discovered, some days it covers the beach. But, Dvoracek said, days later it’s gone.</p>
<p>Leatherman said he is hopeful scientists and entrepreneurs will figure out ways to keep it from making landfall. Some ideas he has heard of, such as sinking it far off shore, sound promising, he said.</p>
<p>Researchers at the University of Miami and the University of Florida are exploring ways to turn it into compost. The key is ridding it of arsenic and other toxic heavy metals.</p>
<p>In the meantime, beachgoers need to understand how important the seaweed is to the coastal ecosystem, Dvoracek said.</p>
<p>“Instead of getting rid of it, we have to learn to exist in harmony,” she said.</p>
<p>But, she admitted, the potential for a large mass of sargassum moving ashore is concerning.</p>
<p>“It’s going to be a weird season,” she said. </p></div>Letter to the Editor: Value of beach raking questionedhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/letter-to-the-editor-value-of-beach-raking-questioned2022-09-28T16:18:22.000Z2022-09-28T16:18:22.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p>I just received your September issue and was shocked to read your front-page article on “Suffering summer of sargassum” full of inaccurate information. I and South Florida would appreciate the honest truth be published regarding our beaches and sargassum/human waste handling. <br /> Even though FDEP, FWC, the town of Highland Beach and both tractor companies all use the words “clean the beach,” the beach has never been mechanically cleaned by either tractor company since they started operating 40 years ago.<br /> No one should be using the word “clean.” Nothing is removed from our beach. There are not two teams working, with one clearing large debris and trash from the seaweed, and nothing is buried — and should not be since the weed is intermingled with human garbage. <br /> Both weed and human garbage are just rearranged and raked under to rot and smolder, creating more and longer-term gases along with the accumulation of garbage. <br /> The tractor operations consist of one tractor with a simple rake and roller attached to the back and a front bucket. The weeds and garbage are left in disarranged mounds amid tractor ruts, partially covered with sand to fester. <br /> The tractor companies sign the FDEP permit to clean the beach, they advertise they clean the beach, and they bill their clients for cleaning the beach — and clean nothing? All the while trespassing and rutting up all beachfront property owners’ property, causing damage to the dune system and sand loss.<br /> You are more than welcome to sit on my beachfront patio and watch the tractor operations. I also have hours of video and hundreds of photos. <br /> I enjoy reading your newspaper and it shows the research and knowledge that goes into most articles, and I believe that your group works for a better Florida and its beaches. Please research anything to do with any tractor company’s statements. They have been lying for 40 years and I honestly think that they have convinced themselves and now believe they are providing a good environmental service.</p>
<p style="text-align:right;"><em>Robert Patek</em><br /><em>Highland Beach</em></p></div>Along the Coast: Suffering summer of sargassumhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-suffering-summer-of-sargassum2022-08-31T17:51:06.000Z2022-08-31T17:51:06.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10800254095,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10800254095,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10800254095?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a>Winds from the east this summer have pushed a nearly constant supply of sargassum onto the beach, challenging beachgoers like Debby Belmonte of Ocean Ridge. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star </strong></em></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:14pt;">Seasonal inundation is here to stay, scientists say</span></p>
<p><strong>By Larry Barszewski</strong></p>
<p>Rotting seaweed piles along South Florida’s coast can ruin a perfectly good day at the beach and foul the breeze reaching nearby homes and condos. At night, large sargassum wracks can ensnare sea turtle hatchlings struggling to reach the ocean.<br /> But out at sea, the sargassum is a floating buffet and camouflage for baby sea turtles and other marine species, providing sustenance and protection from predators. And on shore, it can trap sand and fortify eroding coastlines. It can even be recycled into fertilizer.<br /> Good or bad, benefit or nuisance, the seasonal inundation on South Palm Beach County beaches is here to stay, scientists say.<br /> “In the past seven years, starting from 2015, the waters around Southeast Florida experienced way more sargassum than before 2015. This is likely going to continue in future years,” said Professor Chuanmin Hu, an optical oceanographer at the University of South Florida in Tampa.<br /> It’s not only a local issue. Florida Atlantic University researchers have concluded the large increases in sargassum in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, forming the Great Atlantic Sargassum Belt, are fed by vast amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus pouring into the ocean from the Amazon, Congo and Mississippi rivers, often resulting from deforestation and the rise of agriculture. <br /> The nutrients also are carried in the wind on grains of sand from the Sahara Desert and from biomass burning of vegetation in Africa, according to a 2021 FAU study.<br /> “We saw very clearly in our data that these plants respond to increasing nitrate and phosphate, particularly when they’re combined together,” said the study’s lead author, FAU Professor Brian Lapointe of the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute. The whole North Atlantic basin is being affected by major river plumes and atmospheric deposits, he said. <br /> The brown sargassum reaching Palm Beach County passes through the Caribbean Sea first, where significant increases have been reported since 2011, leading to “mountains” of sargassum landing on island beaches there, Hu said. Some of the sargassum from the Caribbean travels to the Gulf of Mexico, the Florida Straits and north along the Gulf Stream — where a strong easterly wind and local tidal conditions can send it to Florida shores, Hu says.<br /> “The past few years represents a new normal for future years, but every year will fluctuate. It could be higher or lower, but it will never reach the level we see in the Caribbean Sea,” Hu said of sargassum’s impact on the Southeast Florida coastline. “An individual beach may have a completely different story. … An individual beach may have more sargassum, even major sargassum, simply because of winds and tides. That’s a huge variable.”</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:10pt;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10800257064,RESIZE_1200x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10800257064,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10800257064?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a>A swath of sargassum 20 feet wide and knee-deep coats the beach south of the Boca Raton Inlet on Aug. 26. <strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></em></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Tides of seaweed</span><br /> Clayton Peart experiences the impact in south Palm Beach County, where the Gulf Stream’s proximity to land is at its closest, on almost a daily basis. His family owns Universal Beach Services, a Delray Beach company that contracts with condos and homeowners to clean the beaches in front of their properties.<br /> One thing that has drawn Peart’s attention as he cleans beaches this year is just the magnitude of the large patches of sargassum offshore.<br /> “It seems like islands of seaweed washing in,” Peart said. The frequency of sargassum landing on the beaches rose dramatically this year, he said.<br /> “The normal conditions are three weeks off and then two or three days of bad seaweed,” Peart said. This year, the situation flipped, he said: “The seaweed is bad for two or three weeks, and then there’s a break for three days.”<br /> Fortunately, the sargassum amounts are lessening as fall approaches. Heavy inundations should not be seen again until the spring. But even that is a change from the past.<br /> Hu said that although 2022 doesn’t appear to have dumped the most sargassum on the Florida coast, the sargassum presence expanded, showing up as early as April, in the heart of tourist season, when the beaches are most crowded.<br /> “The amount of sargassum is not the highest we’ve seen, but the duration is the longest,” Hu said. “Usually, the Southeast Florida coast did not experience large amounts of sargassum except in June and July, you know, two months, or sometimes May to June.”<br /> The sargassum piles are particularly noticeable on the south side of jetties at the Lake Worth Inlet, the Boynton Inlet and the Boca Inlet, trapped after being pushed there by southeasterly winds.<br /> “We have seen massive amounts, for example, accumulate on the south jetty at Fort Pierce Inlet, very similar to what has happened in the town of Palm Beach this summer. It can catch on the jetties, right, and accumulate and begin to rot and stink,” Lapointe said. “Those areas are becoming problematic, releasing a lot of toxic hydrogen sulfide gas that is a health issue at very low concentrations.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Hatchling obstacle</span><br /> The heaviest time for the sargassum reaching south Palm Beach County overlaps the sea turtle nesting season, posing potential problems for hatchling turtles. <br /> A study by a Florida Atlantic University graduate student published in the <em>Journal of Coastal Research</em> this year said sargassum accumulations in 2020 “may have caused as much as a 22% decline in net hatchling production in Boca Raton.”<br /> The study by Joshua P. Schiariti and Michael Salmon, an FAU professor, at one point looked at 101 hatchlings trying to reach the ocean and found decreasing levels of success as the height of the sargassum barriers increased. None of 16 hatchlings coming upon a sargassum wrack that was a foot or more high was able to cross it, the study reported.<br /> Although it is a potential threat to hatchlings, the sargassum hasn’t stopped near records of loggerheads and other nesting sea turtles from coming ashore this year to lay their eggs. “They plow right through it getting to the beach,” said David Anderson, the sea turtle conservation coordinator at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton.<br /> “The biggest impact we have seen, because of the large amounts of sargassum, is hatchlings struggling to get to the high tide line,” Anderson said. “We have a lot of people wave us down on the beach where hatchlings are stuck in the sargassum.”<br /> City and private crews hired to clean the beaches and bury the sargassum aren’t allowed to work until crews surveying the beach for turtle nests and wayward hatchlings give an all-clear. Peart said in early August that there were a couple of weeks when he had lengthy delays in his morning work schedule because of heightened concern about trapped hatchlings.<br /> “The turtle people were requesting I come to work later, to make sure all the hatchlings were out,” Peart said. That meant instead of cleaning the beaches between sunrise and mid-morning, he couldn’t get started sometimes until closer to lunchtime, he said.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10800255098,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10800255098,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" alt="10800255098?profile=RESIZE_710x" width="710" /></a>The county has a hands-off policy for sargassum at its parks such as Ocean Inlet (above). <span style="font-size:10pt;"><strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></span><br /> </em></p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Can’t you smell that smell?</span><br /> Hatchlings aren’t the only ones affected by the decomposing sargassum — it bothers people, too. <br /> Sargassum, by itself, isn’t toxic like red tide, an algal bloom that has been a particular problem on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Hu said. However, the hydrogen sulfide it emits while decaying can cause health issues for people breathing it in.<br /> “Under Florida sunshine, after a couple of days, the sargassum plant gets rotten and smells very bad, like a rotten egg,” Hu said, especially when it’s in huge amounts. “It’s not good, maybe it’s harmful to your health, especially if you have breathing problems, asthma.”<br /> And the sheer volume of the sargassum at sea is turning its presence from a vibrant living organism into a toxic “dead zone,” according to Lapointe’s study published in <em>Nature Communications</em>. It suggested the increased nitrogen availability is turning the critical nursery habitat for marine life into harmful algal blooms having severe impacts on coastal ecosystems and human health.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;">Keeping beaches clean</span><br /> To handle the wrack locally, most beach cleaning in south Palm Beach County is done by private contractors because many towns don’t have a public beach to clean. The larger cities, including Boca Raton and Delray Beach, take care of their own public beaches.<br /> Unlike Fort Lauderdale, which collects and composts its sargassum for use as a soil supplement, the private contractors and local communities here generally bury the seaweed at the beach. “I incorporate it into the dune system,” Peart said.<br /> They must follow strict rules during the turtle nesting season, which runs from March through October, to ensure protection of sea turtle nests and hatchlings. <br /> “We have two teams using a process where groundskeepers in a utility vehicle move forward to clear large debris and trash from the seaweed. As the groundskeepers advance, a tractor is brought in behind to dig a hole where needed and seaweed is pushed into the hole and buried,” Boca Raton spokeswoman Anne Marie Connolly said in an email to The Coastal Star.<br /> “Cleaning is also limited to the last high tide line and our tractors are not permitted to clean the upper beach or dune line,” Connolly said. “The beach is cleaned daily, though at times we are hindered by an overwhelming amount of seaweed that is occasionally deposited during the change in tides or an occasional equipment issue.”<br /> Palm Beach County takes a hands-off approach to the sargassum, because of the beneficial impacts it can have on beaches. That policy is in effect at county-owned beaches, including Ocean Inlet Park, Gulfstream Park, Hammock Park and South Inlet Park in South County.<br /> “The county’s standard practice is to leave accumulation in place as it represents a critical part of the beach ecosystem providing food and shelter for wildlife, and nutrients and stability to sensitive dune habitat,” Andy Studt, the county’s program director for coastal resources management, said in an email to <em>The Coastal Star</em>.<br /> “If necessary, Parks staff will work to clear open pathways through the sand down to the water for beachgoers at county-owned parks,” Studt said.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10800272259,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10800272259,RESIZE_584x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="503" alt="10800272259?profile=RESIZE_584x" /></a><em>Adrian Guarniere, 17, a senior at Boca Raton High, wades through dense, floating sargassum on his way back to the beach on Aug. 26. He’d been fishing with a friend at South Beach Park. <strong>Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p></div>Editor's Note: Thanks to all who pick trash off beach; you may be saving baby turtleshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/editor-s-note-thanks-to-all-who-pick-trash-off-beach-you-may-be-s2022-08-03T18:03:31.000Z2022-08-03T18:03:31.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10746247069,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10746247069,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10746247069?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>A loggerhead hatchling trapped in a plastic cup nestled in sargassum. <strong>Photo provided by Sea Turtle Adventures</strong></em></p>
<p>Every season has its heroes. In the South Florida fall, public safety and tree removal workers should get medals for cleaning up after the inevitable storms; in winter, hardworking nonprofit event planners prove essential to the success of the philanthropy season; and in the spring, lifeguards deserve bonuses for keeping flocks of tourists safe at beaches. <br /> In the summer — the hot, muggy summer — the residents who walk the beach picking up trash are the ones deserving trophies. Every day they are out crunching through mounds of sargassum to hand-pick shreds of plastic, bottle caps, empty bottles and other debris from our shoreline. <br /> Many do this year round, but in the summer the labor is especially important — this is when thousands of baby sea turtles are trying to make their way to the sea. And this year so far, a near-record number of baby loggerheads are heading through daunting odds — about 1,000-to-1 against surviving to maturity — to first reach the ocean, and then the Gulf Stream. <br /> The last thing these hatchlings need as they struggle down a seaweed-laden beach is to end up trapped inside a plastic cup. But that’s what happened last month when a monitor with Sea Turtle Adventures stumbled across a trapped hatchling on the beach in Gulf Stream. <br />Luckily, monitors were there to safely release the turtle. Sea turtle monitors are another under-recognized group providing essential service each summer.<br />But it’s the residents who head out each day with nothing more than a bag or bucket for gathering the trash that challenges baby turtles as they head to the sea — other more organic dangers include crabs, hungry birds and the occasional raccoon or fox. <br /> Once the hatchlings make it over the sand and seaweed into the water of the Atlantic, they’re targets of predatory fish and hovering birds. <br /> If the baby turtles make it safely to the Gulf Stream, their diet will consist of small bits of sea life and jelly fish — items that look just like floating plastic. Plastic ingestion is quickly becoming a major factor in turtle deaths throughout the world.<br /> That’s why the efforts of those individuals who pick up trash along our beaches should be heralded. <br />In the grand scope of all the plastic that will end up in the world’s oceans and washing onto every shore, their efforts may feel minuscule. But any effort to get plastic out of the ocean and off the beach is an important effort — especially for a tiny turtle stuck inside a plastic cup.</p>
<p style="text-align:right;"><em>— Mary Kate Leming, Editor</em></p></div>Ocean Ridge: Spring means sargassum; Along the beach — May 25https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/ocean-ridge-spring-means-sargassum-along-the-beach-may-25-12022-06-01T15:01:48.000Z2022-06-01T15:01:48.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10530547466,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10530547466,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10530547466?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a><em>A steady breeze from the east for at least a week piled up mounds of sargassum along the shore in mid-May. Warm temperatures make the naturally occurring seaweed reproduce in large numbers, often to the frustration of beach-goers. </em><strong>ABOVE:</strong><em> A resident picks up trash that floated in with the sargassum. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p></div>Ocean Ridge: Spring means sargassum; Along the beach — May 25https://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/ocean-ridge-spring-means-sargassum-along-the-beach-may-252022-06-01T14:55:12.000Z2022-06-01T14:55:12.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><em><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}10530541688,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}10530541688,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="10530541688?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a>A steady breeze from the east for at least a week piled up mounds of sargassum along the shore in mid-May. Warm temperatures make the naturally occurring seaweed reproduce in large numbers, often to the frustration of beach-goers. </em><strong>ABOVE:</strong><em> A resident picks up trash that floated in with the sargassum. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p></div>Lantana: Beachgoers to have little relief from sargassum this summerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/lantana-beachgoers-to-have-little-relief-from-sargassum-this-summ2021-06-02T16:12:20.000Z2021-06-02T16:12:20.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}9025901300,RESIZE_930x{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-center" src="{{#staticFileLink}}9025901300,RESIZE_710x{{/staticFileLink}}" width="710" alt="9025901300?profile=RESIZE_710x" /></a></strong><em>Mounds of naturally occurring sargassum are upsetting some of the visitors to Lantana’s beach. </em><strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></p>
<p><strong>By Mary Thurwachter</strong></p>
<p>It’s that time of year again, when sargassum blankets the beach, encroaching on beachgoers’ space. It’s nothing new, but nonetheless irritating to people looking for ample room to spread out beach towels, anchor umbrellas and feel the hot sand beneath their feet as they make their way to the ocean.<br /> The problem is not unique to Lantana, but when the brown seaweed hogs so much of the compact — just under 800 feet — town shoreline, tempers rise. And beachgoers are not shy about voicing complaints.<br /> “My granddaughter says ‘it stinks,’” says Karen Lythgoe, vice mayor pro tem. And young Sadie is not alone. Eddie Crockett, the town’s director of operations, and Town Manager Deborah Manzo have gotten an earful from disgruntled sunbathers.<br /> Some municipalities have their shorelines mechanically raked regularly, but Lantana doesn’t.<br /> The matter came up at the town’s May 24 meeting, when Crockett asked the Town Council for direction ahead of the Memorial Day weekend.<br /> “Right now we are having one of those very challenging times,” Crockett said. “There’s so much sargassum and beachgoers are the ones most directly impacted.”<br /> “We don’t have a whole lot of space for our beach,” Manzo said of the sargassum. “We bury as much as we can, and then, at some point, we run out of space. The reason we added this to the agenda is the holiday is coming up and we just wanted to start it happening and made sure we brought it to council.”<br /> Mayor Robert Hagerty, who has been on the job since mid-March, asked what prevented the town from having some type of mechanical device raking the beach.<br /> Crockett said a 2016 directive from the council prohibits the removal of natural debris such as sargassum and allows the use of a mechanical rake only to the east side of the median high tide line traversing the beach. Often, that is only a small portion of the beach. And when raking is done, space for burying the seaweed quickly fills, so the extra sometimes is tossed back in the sea.<br /> To the point raised by Lythgoe’s granddaughter, Crockett explained that “as the seaweed starts to decompose, it gives off an unpleasant smell and the tiny organisms that live in it may irritate the skin if a person comes into contact with it.”<br /> Lythgoe said the sargassum would always be a problem.<br /> “It’s normal,” she said. “It goes all the way from Brazil to the coast of Florida. All the action to mitigate it has to be done locally. We have to do something. When it decomposes on the beach, it smells. If it goes back into the water, it kills sea grass roots, which is what the turtles feed on. So we’ve got to weigh the nuisance versus the environmental impact.”<br /> During a phone conversation with Ligia Collado-Vides, associate chair of the marine biology department at Florida International University, Lythgoe learned of things that can be done, but said the one thing not to do is to put sargassum back into the sea.<br /> “If you’re going to do something at all with it, she said the best option is to bury it,” Lythgoe explained. “But you have to protect the sea turtles. For the long term, we can contact Heather Armstrong from Recycle Florida Today. There are a number of research projects going on about how you can reuse and recycle sargassum. There’s bioplastics, biofuel and research about using it for cosmetics and soaps.” <br /> But what to do now? Hagerty entertained a motion to rake the beach twice a week between Memorial Day and Labor Day. Lythgoe made the motion, but it failed when it didn’t get a second. Council member Lynn Moorhouse was absent.<br /> “Since the Town Council rejected the beach raking initiative, we will not be conducting any mechanical or manual beach raking operations this summer unless otherwise directed by Town Council,” Crockett said in an email after the meeting. “With Memorial Day coming and the manner in which tides come and go, it is very difficult to predict how much sargassum seaweed will accumulate on the beach at any given time. Last year, Town Council authorized mechanical beach raking operations from the Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day.”<br /> In other business, the council approved a contract not to exceed $81,000 with Pro Construction Consultants to install an alum-inum railing at the beach.</p></div>Along the Coast: Sargassum more friend than foehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-sargassum-more-friend-than-foe2019-07-03T18:00:00.000Z2019-07-03T18:00:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:18pt;"><em>Influx may be ‘new normal,’ force beachgoers to adapt</em></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960875295,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960875295,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960875295?profile=original" /></a><em>Clayton Peart of Universal Beach Services rakes sargassum into the sand on Delray Beach’s beach. The sargassum, which began to arrive in February, helps preserve the beach and protect and nourish sea turtles. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
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<p><strong>By Cheryl Blackerby</strong></p>
<p>Scientists say sargassum, a golden-brown seaweed, is overwhelmingly a beneficial and essential part of the environment. <br /> But what had been a small scattering of seaweed in summer months years ago is now piles of seaweed arriving on beaches starting in winter. When the sargassum rolled onto Florida beaches in early February, some snowbirds were irate. <br /> The seaweed is ugly, it smells, it brings plastic and other trash tangled in the mats, say beach residents, and it mars the white beaches that are Florida’s tourism bread and butter. Others are worried that the seaweed is disturbing turtle nests. So far it hasn’t. <br /> To make matters worse, a new species of sargassum is piling up on South Florida’s beaches, and that isn’t good news for beachgoers. <br /> Scientists have confirmed there are now three species of sargassum coming from two places, not just the traditional species originating in the Sargasso Sea — which means there’s a lot more of it.<br /> Two species ride the currents from the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic to Florida, but the third species comes from the equatorial Atlantic. This sargassum, which has thicker mats and broader leaves, first arrived in 2011, the result of an enormous, unprecedented seaweed bloom that now stretches from Brazil to Africa and up to the Caribbean and Florida.<br /> “This seems to be somewhat of a new normal, and we don’t know how long it might go on. But the world is changing,” said Dr. Amy Siuda, assistant professor of marine science at Galbraith Marine Science Laboratory, Eckerd College in St. Petersburg. “It likely has to do with climate change, and we have to adapt as humans to these changes. Unfortunately, that might mean our beaches don’t look the way they used to. We need to figure out how we can use the beaches in a new form.”<br /> From the Dune Deck Cafe in Lantana in late June, diners watched 6-foot-wide floating mats of seaweed coming in like an invading army from as far as the eye could see. Swimmers navigated around them, and snorkelers tried not to get underneath the thick tangles. <br /> Some want the seaweed hauled off ASAP. Others appreciate the fact that it helps keep expensive sand on the beach and will collect even more sand.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Cleanup can be exhausting</strong></span><br /> Clayton Peart hears it all. His family has owned Universal Beach Services in Delray Beach since the 1970s. He picks up the sargassum and painstakingly separates the trash from the seaweed, and then takes the plastic and other trash to recycling. But the seaweed can pile up again hours later and certainly by the next day.<br /> Beachgoers often give him a thumbs down as he works, not realizing he has permits from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, which are looking over his shoulder. He is also working with groups that monitor sea turtles. They text him shortly after dawn when they survey the beaches, mark the turtle nests and give him the OK to start work.<br /> “It’s almost like you have to be there around the clock. It’s exhausting,” says Peart. He buries the seaweed in the tideline and fills in low spots where escarpments have been formed by beach erosion. <br /> He encounters all kinds of trash that comes in with the tide. He has picked up thousands of bottle caps, cigarette butts, plastic in every form, shotgun shells, flares, broken up sailboats, car tires and a rusty all-terrain vehicle. <br /> “A couple of days ago, a wedding party left fake flower petals and candles all over the beach,” he says. The party was on Delray Beach.<br /> Lately, as he cleans behind condos and hotels from Boca Raton to Palm Beach and other South Florida beaches, he has seen beachgoers picking up trash with him, and he is getting an occasional thumbs up. He asks that the beach cleaners leave it in piles so it’s easier for him to pick up. <br /> “People say I’m causing erosion, but it’s the opposite. I am being a caretaker,” he says.</p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960876092,original{{/staticFileLink}}" target="_blank"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960876092,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="550" alt="7960876092?profile=original" /></a><em>Universal Services driver Alcides Rodrigues shows a day’s load of trash that he picked up at Delray Beach. On days with lots of trash, a temporary worker helps out. <strong>Photo provided</strong></em></p>
<p><br /> Cleanup is expensive, and with more and more sargassum arriving every year it is requiring herculean manpower to keep up with it. The City of Delray Beach pays $79,000 per year for beach cleanup, according to a city agreement.<br /> Most agree the seaweed should be buried or removed if it is rotting and emitting noxious fumes. Scientists are working on ways to use it as biofuel, fertilizer, mulch and food.<br /> The other option is to do nothing or just enough to protect turtles and try to educate people about Mother Nature. When it concerns beach-loving tourists, most beachside towns would say that’s not an option.<br /> One place that sargassum is left alone is Bahia Honda State Park in the Florida Keys. On Valentine’s Day, the sargassum was 6 inches thick on the Atlantic beaches, but visitors, including French and Italian tourists, didn’t seem bothered by it. They spread beach mats on new golden seaweed, walked the sandy tideline, and photographed seabirds feeding in the seaweed on the beach.</p>
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<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Essential to sea turtles</strong></span><br /> But these tourists are largely different from those on hotel and condo beaches in Palm Beach County. Those in the state park are there to see nature, which on this visit included sargassum. Rangers tell them the benefits, including that it’s a lifeline for sea turtle hatchlings that travel the ocean on sargassum the first two years of their lives.<br /> “We’ve been pleasantly surprised at people’s reactions after we explain that it’s a natural phenomenon,” says Donald Bergeron, Bahia Honda State Park manager. “We monitor the loggerhead and green turtle nests and haven’t seen any problems with sargassum covering the nests or hatchlings having trouble going over the seaweed. We have cycles of seaweed — it comes in and goes out. Nature takes care of it.”<br /> The turtles in Palm Beach County are also faring well in spite of the sargassum.<br /> “It’s been a great nesting year so far. We’ve had some of the highest numbers since the 1990s, loggerheads in particular,” says David Anderson, sea turtle conservation coordinator at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton. As of June 29, “we have 605 loggerhead nests and 145 green turtle nests. And we are just getting started with green turtles.”<br /> Sargassum potentially can cover nests or impede hatchlings on their path to the ocean, but there have been no problems so far, he says. “The turtles are big animals, with mothers weighing 300 pounds or so. It doesn’t bother them at all. They will plow right through in order to get on the beach.”<br /> Turtle monitors are out every day at sunrise to check for mother and hatchling turtles’ tracks on a 5-mile stretch of beach between the Highland Beach border and the border with Deerfield Beach. Nests are checked during the two-month incubation period, and sargassum is brushed off during the last month if it covers a nest. “Then we text beach rakers and give them the go-ahead. The beach rakers are all well-trained to steer clear of nests,” he says.<br /> Anderson and Dr. Siuda want people to keep in mind that sargassum is essential for sea turtles’ survival in the ocean. Siuda compares sargassum to a coral reef.<br /> “Coral reefs are this unique community in the ocean and so is sargassum. It hosts nursery turtles. It serves as a feeding habitat. You’ll find mahi-mahi and tuna around it feeding on the smaller fish, which are feeding on the organisms that live within the sargassum. They’re feeding in the open ocean where food is sparse,” she said.</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Thriving in changing seas</strong></span><br /> Siuda and colleagues discovered the new type of sargassum by finding that the community of organisms living on it was from the equatorial Atlantic. “It has a genetically different population of organisms,” Siuda said.<br /> They also found that this particular seaweed does not exist in the Sargasso Sea. “It doesn’t seem to be able to survive. It may be too cold,” she said. <br /> This new sargassum appearing on Florida beaches has been in the equatorial Atlantic at least since the 1930s, although research shows it was rare, she said. <br /> “And then something changed to allow it to bloom in such abundance. Whether that is increased nutrients from the Amazon or increased upwelling at the equator bringing nutrients to the surface, we don’t know yet,” Siuda said. <br /> Meanwhile, beachgoers may need to look at sargassum as far more friend than foe.<br /> “If people understand the importance of sargassum in the ocean environment, then they might be a little more understanding of it, and a little more protective of it coming up onto the beaches,” she said.</p></div>Letter to the Editor: Plastic-laden seaweed should be removedhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/letter-to-the-editor-plastic-laden-seaweed-should-be-removed2018-11-28T17:00:00.000Z2018-11-28T17:00:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p>Many of us who live on the beach in Highland Beach are frustrated with the tractors’ beach “cleanup.” The trash and massive amount of seaweed is churned and buried — and with it all the plastic tangled up in it, from old, barnacled shoes to plastic forks and knives, plastic bottles and styrofoam.</p>
<p>Our beach has gone from having beautiful pristine white sand to having seaweed-with-plastic sand. Not comfortable to walk on barefoot, unhealthy, not pretty and very smelly, too. We spend all our time gathering the trash that’s merely been hidden just under the surface. </p>
<p>The beach trash-removing companies should do what snow-removal companies do in the North with the snow: They cart it away and dump it at a central location off-site — in this case dump the plastic-laden seaweed in the landfill. It’s as good as trash, unfortunately. <br /> I really hope the town can resolve this to our residents’ satisfaction. We would like to get our beautiful, clean beaches back and stop being surrogate trash removers ourselves, cleaning up what the hired companies bury or leave behind. </p>
<p><em>Kiri Borg</em><br /> <em>Highland Beach</em></p>
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<p><span><b>LETTERS:</b> <i>The Coastal Star</i> welcomes letters-to-the-editor about issues of interest in the community. These are subject to editing and must include your name, address and phone number. Preferred length is 200 words or less. Email to editor@thecoastalstar.com. or mail to 5011 N. Ocean Blvd. Suite #2, Ocean Ridge, FL 33435</span></p></div>Along the Coast: Sargassum surge viewed as disaster in Caribbeanhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-sargassum-surge-viewed-as-disaster-in-caribbean2018-08-01T15:00:00.000Z2018-08-01T15:00:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960804867,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="600" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960804888,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960804888?profile=original" /></a><em>Sargassum clogs a harbor along the shore of Guadeloupe. The windward sides of the islands are much harder hit than the leeward sides. <strong>French America Climate Talks</strong></em></p>
<p><strong>By Cheryl Blackerby</strong></p>
<p>A natural disaster has hit the Caribbean. Barbados has declared a national emergency, and the sprawling St. James Club resort in Antigua has been forced to temporarily close its doors and direct guests elsewhere. Marine experts are looking at damaged coral reefs and sea turtle mortalities.<br /> And Puerto Rico has another emergency on top of last year’s catastrophic hurricane damage.<br /> In a region with its share of hurricanes, active volcanoes and earthquakes, the Caribbean has a new problem, one never seen before 2011 — sargassum. <br /> The seaweed is being dumped by ocean waves on some of the most beautiful beaches in the world, and it’s arriving faster than it can be removed. It’s clogging waterways, shading coral reefs and killing marine mammals that drown underneath its thick mats stretching for miles. <br /> And this is happening in a region that generally has very little seaweed.<br /> Sargassum has always been in Florida, the Bahamas and other islands. But scientists are alarmed at research that shows the seaweed piling up on shores since 2011 is not the same plant as that in the past, which arrived at predictable times of the year from the Sargasso Sea. This new species is coming from the south near Brazil and is quickly spreading on ocean currents that are deviating from normal patterns.<br /> The Caribbean islands worst hit are Barbados, Guadeloupe, Antigua and Martinique.<br /> Mexico’s Riviera Maya is also seeing massive amounts of seaweed. <br /> Residents, hotel employees and military personnel are being called on to clean the beaches by rake and wheelbarrow to preserve sea turtle nests and the area’s famous white sand. <br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960804076,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="600" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960804076,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960804076?profile=original" /></a>Beyond the beaches, the bigger picture is even worse: Satellite imaging shows the seaweed growing and spreading over a swath of ocean from Brazil to West Africa and north to Florida, a new and troubling phenomenon.<br /> “We saw it for the first time in 2011. It was really bad in 2014 and 2015. This year is the worst, with no end in sight,” Dr. Hazel Oxenford, professor of fisheries and marine ecology at the University of the West Indies in Barbados, said in late July.<br /> “It’s essentially a natural disaster with long-term effects on fisheries, coral reefs and sea grasses. We’re looking at some significant problems,” she said.<br /> Marine scientists were surprised by this seaweed, which hadn’t been seen in the Caribbean in the past. Researchers at first assumed it had drifted south from the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic, where the open-ocean seaweed is generally found. But satellite imagery and ocean current data showed an unusual stretch of sargassum off the coast of Brazil.<br /> Dr. Jim Gower, a remote-sensing expert with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Institute of Ocean Sciences, tracked the sargassum and by 2013 he had reached a conclusion: Satellite observations showed the seaweed event of the summer of 2011 “had its origin north of the mouth of the Amazon in an area not previously associated with sargassum growth. … By July it had spread to the coast of Africa in the east and to the Lesser Antilles and the Caribbean in the west,” he said in a report published in The Journal of Remote Sensing Letters.<br /> Dr. James Franks, a fisheries biologist, and his colleagues at the University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research Laboratory came to the same conclusion about why a once seaweed-free part of the ocean is now filled with seaweed. Tracking the seaweed mass-blooming events back in time showed its path from the tropical Atlantic east of Brazil.<br /> “Invariably, in all of those instances, it tracked back to the tropical region (Brazil). None of it ever tracked northward into the Sargasso Sea,” Franks told Science Magazine in June 2018.<br /> In the Caribbean, islanders were stunned and bewildered by the piles of sargassum as much as 6 feet high dumped on their beaches. They hoped it was a one-time event, but that wasn’t the case.<br /> Sargassum, which is essential for sea turtle hatchlings that ride the ocean currents on the nutrient-rich mats in the first few years of their lives, is now a danger to turtle hatchlings on land, where the seaweed smothers nests and poses obstacles on their beach path to the ocean.<br /> “The Barbados government declared an emergency and is using military personnel to help. Removing it requires a tremendous amount of manpower. They are using appropriate methods, not machinery but rakes, to preserve turtle nests and sand,” Oxenford said.<br /> In the ocean, turtles and marine mammals can’t surface and may drown under the thick seaweed, a new species that has larger blades than seaweed usually seen in the Sargasso Sea. <br /> “We have had a few mortalities (of turtles) this year,” Oxenford said. “But we have very active conservation groups that are helping.”<br /> She and other scientists are studying the sources and causes of this new sargassum, which has marine researchers scrambling to understand it. <br /> “It’s a new source of sargassum. It’s not from the Sargasso Sea, but from Brazil and West Africa. It’s coming at the whim of the ocean currents and trade winds, which normally have a pattern,” she said.<br /> Ocean currents are deviating from normal, another mystery that is alarming scientists.<br /> “There’s been tremendous variation in the ocean current patterns,” Oxenford said.<br /> No one knows with certainty what is causing the massive seaweed bloom, but there are educated guesses. <br /> “The causes run a whole gamut, with a combination of higher water temperatures caused by climate change, higher nutrient levels, and pollution from deforestation and industrial development,” Oxenford said.<br /> The one bit of good news is that the sargassum is piling up on the windward side of the islands, and most hotels in the Caribbean are on the calmer leeward side. Hotels have temporarily closed — this is the second time since 2011 that the St. James Club has closed (from July 1 to Oct. 1 this year) because of seaweed — but luckily the sargassum hit at a time when Caribbean hotels traditionally close for renovations.<br /> To make matters worse for the big resorts on the windward side, most are located on bays and coves, which quickly get choked by the seaweed piling up in the waterways and blocking passage for boats.<br /> No one can predict how long this seaweed event will last or how bad it will be in the future.<br /> “We’re not going to get it stopped in a hurry. It’s a long-term problem. It would be like stopping hurricanes,” Oxenford said. “We have to learn to adapt.”</p>
<p><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960804093,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="550" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960804093,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960804093?profile=original" /></a><em>Crews work to rid the beaches of Cancun, Mexico, of seaweed. In Mexico, residents, hotel employees and military personnel have been called on to clean the beaches by rake and wheelbarrow to preserve sea turtle nests and the area’s white sand. <strong>Reuters</strong></em></p>
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<p><span style="font-size:18pt;"><strong>Dealing with sargassum</strong></span><br /> The Antigua Hotels and Tourist Association and the Caribbean Hotel and Tourism Association have released a guide for residents and hotels dealing with the sargassum crisis. <br /> Some of the suggestions:<br /> • Leave or bury the sargassum on the beach. <br /> • Use rakes and wheelbarrows to gather and transport the sargassum, being careful not to disturb sea turtle nests.<br /> • Incorporate sargassum into landscaping after it’s cleaned of sea salt. It provides a nutrient-rich source of compost, fertilizer and weed control.<br /> • Eat it. After it is thoroughly cleaned, it can be cooked in lemon juice and coconut milk: “The most popular preparation is a quick fry, followed by simmering in water, soy sauce and other ingredients.”</p></div>Along the Coast: Rare seaweed washes ashorehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-rare-seaweed-washes-ashore2018-07-04T15:00:00.000Z2018-07-04T15:00:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960807084,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img width="600" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960807084,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" alt="7960807084?profile=original" /></a><em>Mounds of sargassum, in places more than 30 feet wide and more than a foot deep, pile up on the beach in Ocean Ridge in mid-June. Since then some of the seaweed decomposed but then more arrived on the tide. <strong>Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:14pt;">Sargassum species perplexes but doesn’t worry</span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><span style="font-size:14pt;">experts, who see no threat to nesting turtles</span></p>
<p><strong>By Cheryl Blackerby</strong></p>
<p>Sargassum, the brown seaweed that is tossed onto South Florida’s beaches by Atlantic waves, has always been a mixed blessing: Environmentalists love it, beachgoers loathe it.<br /> But this year, the piles of seaweed also have presented a mystery that has scientists baffled. It’s a new species of sargassum with larger leaves and heavier tangled mats than in years past. Where did this new sargassum come from and how did it get here? Scientists believe it didn’t take the usual path on the Gulf Stream.<br /> It doesn’t seem to be carrying as many tiny shrimp and crabs that made the old seaweed species sources of food for seabirds. <br /> And, most perplexing, this year there have been far fewer man-of-war that usually accompany sargassum. Could the new seaweed be keeping them away?<br /> Sargassum started showing up on beaches in May, when it usually does. Beachgoers have to stake their umbrellas away from the mounds, which many consider ugly and smelly blights. Hotels worry about tourists’ reactions. Visitors from other parts of the country don’t know that seaweed is a beneficial part of Florida’s natural landscape.<br /> Marine conservationists see its many virtues: It protects expensive replacement sand on the beaches, it bolsters sand dunes that help keep hurricane surges away from houses and roads, and it gives nourishment to beach vegetation. <br /> Offshore, it provides crucial sanctuaries and nutrients to turtle hatchlings for the first years of their lives and offers safe havens for fish nurseries and protection for dolphins. <br /> The sargassum of past years moved on currents around the Caribbean, through the Florida Straits to the Gulf Stream, and onward to the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean.<br /> The new sargassum is thought to be from Brazil and did not come by currents. It most probably was blown here. <br /> “More recently, I’ve heard a lot of it appears to possibly be a new species or a species that’s not found around here and they think it’s coming up from Brazil, which is very bizarre. I’m not sure what path it’s taken or even if it really is from Brazil,” says Dr. Kirt Rusenko, marine conservationist at Gumbo Limbo Nature Center in Boca Raton.<br /> “If the currents are doing what they normally would do, it would be almost impossible for a floating plant to come here (from Brazil). So I would imagine it would have to be the winds. Possibly the mats are so thick that they would rise out of the water so they would be more affected by the wind.”<br /> The lack of man-of-war normally associated with sargassum is a welcome surprise, but puzzling. <br /> “We have no theories at all,” says Rusenko. “I don’t know if the sargassum is not allowing them to feed or it may be just too thick. I haven’t seen a man-of-war this entire summer.”</p>
<p><span style="font-size:14pt;"><strong>Not a threat to turtles</strong></span><br /> Even though the new sargassum has a larger leaf structure and makes bigger masses, Rusenko doesn’t think the seaweed is a threat to turtle nesting, which started in April.<br /> “We scrape it away if it gets on a nest. Fortunately, there have been only a handful of hatchlings so far and the nests we’ve had didn’t have a lot of seaweed around,” he says. “A few days ago, it would have been a problem. There were 10- or 15-foot-wide mats they would have to climb over.”<br /> Turtle monitors have been busy making sure the seaweed is not a problem for nests, which are often roped off.<br /> Cleanup of beaches must follow strict rules spelled out in permits issued by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Department of Environmental Protection. Regulations call for mechanized equipment to stay in the high-tide water line and to give turtle nests and beach vegetation a wide berth. <br /> Clayton Peart, president of Universal Beach Services Corp., says he has seen a lot of sargassum this year. “It’s almost floating in on islands. It’s worrisome,” he says. He and his family have been doing beach cleanup since 1973 from Palm Beach to south Boca Raton.<br /> Peart buries the sargassum in the waterline following the rules of his permits. “We level escarpments when requested, put seaweed in spots where there’s erosion when it’s not turtle season, and pick up trash. ... We’ve picked up everything from cigarette butts to boats, and a 9,000-pound net.” <br /> Dave Rowland, owner of Beach Keeper, has been maintaining beaches for municipalities, including the beach behind the Eau Palm Beach Resort and Spa, for 21 years. He, too, has seen an upswing in seaweed.<br /> “Three weeks of winds from the east brought in a lot of seaweed. This year has been in the top two years for seaweed. A couple of years ago,” he said, “seaweed was a foot thick from the beach to the end of the Lake Worth Pier.”<br /> Joan Lorne of Delray Beach does turtle patrol with the nonprofit Sea Turtle Adventures on a 3-mile stretch of beach in Gulf Stream, Briny Breezes and Ocean Ridge with her daughter, Jacquelyn Kingston. Kingston has been monitoring sea turtles for 18 years, and her master’s degree research has been incorporated into the FWC’s Marine Turtle Conservation Handbook. <br /> “I don’t have a concern about the sargassum. It’s beginning to dissipate,” says Kingston. “We usually see this. It’s nothing that’s alarming to me. The hatchlings can crawl over it. It’s part of our environment and plays an important role in our ecosystems.”<br /> Betty Bingham has been watching sea turtles and sargassum in Ocean Ridge since her family bought a beach house here in 1959. Bingham, a former town commissioner, moved permanently to the house in 1985.<br /> “In the old days, we would take the sargassum to the dunes to make it harder for the sand to wash out and to give nutrition to the dune plants. Sargassum is enormously nutritious,” she says.<br /> Many towns are beginning to bury the sargassum on the beaches for the same reason — to stabilize replacement sand.<br /> For people who don’t like the seaweed piled on the beaches, she tells them to tear off a piece and shake it into a snorkel mask, then look at the tiny shrimp and crabs that fall out. The seaweed feeds seabirds and is a nursery for sea creatures.<br /> And to those who complain about it, she says: “Tough.”<br /> The sargassum is dissipating, but as Rusenko says, “Who knows, it may come back.”<br /> Michael Stahl, deputy director of Environmental Resources Management for Palm Beach County, says the seaweed “ebbs and flows, although it’s an upward trend. We’re seeing more. It depends on the shore winds and currents and it tends to get concentrated on some beaches.”<br /> There is a lot of speculation on the causes of the larger amounts of seaweed.<br /> “Warmer water would increase the growth rate,” says Rusenko. “We’re definitely concerned. Agricultural runoff, and pesticide and fertilizer pollution coming through the inlets are not helpful.”<br /> As for the turtles, county officials are pleased with nest numbers, although they “won’t break any records,” says Stahl.<br /> “The green turtles are definitely taking this year off. We’ve got five nests in Boca,” Rusenko says. “We haven’t been that low for at least 25 years, and it’s going to be statewide. For some reason, the turtles decided to nest every other year, which doesn’t mean they’re in trouble. This is just an off year. Leatherbacks had 18 nests, loggerheads 396. That’s better than it was 10 years ago. It’s a respectable number.”</p></div>Lantana: Town not planning to remove seaweed from the beachhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/lantana-town-not-planning-to-remove-seaweed-from-the-beach2017-05-31T15:56:46.000Z2017-05-31T15:56:46.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p><strong>By Mary Thurwachter</strong><br /><br /> Cynthia Cain goes to the beach every day.<br /> “I’m not much of a sunbather type of girl, but I like to walk along the shore and swim,” the Lantana resident said. “I have six grandchildren 10 and under and I like to take them, too.”<br /> But by the third weekend in May, Cain wasn’t loving the beach so much. She said she was “totally disgusted with all the seaweed” that was covering the beach. It has been bad for a while, she said, but that weekend, she had seen enough.<br /> After sending several emails to the Town Council and Town Manager Deborah Manzo asking for the beach to be cleaned of the seaweed, she attended the May 22 town meeting. Mayor Dave Stewart had her complaint added to the agenda for discussion.<br /> There was discussion, but no action was taken, at least not the kind Cain wanted.<br /> “Seaweed cannot be removed,” said Stewart. “It’s a Town Council policy.” <br /> Vice Mayor Lynn Moorhouse added: “I don’t think it’s legal.”<br /> Seaweed, Moorhouse said, is essential for marine life. It keeps replacement sand on beaches, offers crucial delicacies such as crabs and snails to seabirds, and provides nutrients to plants on dunes.<br /> And not removing it is what Dan Bates, deputy director of the Palm Beach County Department of Environmental Resources Management, recommends, according to Stewart.<br /> “A month ago, I was on the beach for the Earth Day cleanup and I didn’t see a problem with it,” Stewart said.<br /> Not complying with what Bates recommends could cost the town millions for beach restoration, council members suggested.<br /> Council member Ed Shropshire said: “I know it’s not pretty and doesn’t smell good, but it’s part of the environment. In three weeks it’ll be gone, washed back into the sea.”<br /> Council member Phil Aridas said he wasn’t in favor of moving the seaweed. “You can always kick it aside and lay down your beach blanket.”<br /> But Cain wasn’t buying it. “Quite honestly, we have the worst beach around,” she said, “and I’m not the only one saying it. The lifeguard hears about it all day.”<br /> A beach stabilization project has been delayed by a year because project managers don’t have all the easement agreements and government permits they need to begin work.<br /> In other action, the council:<br /> • Authorized spending $4,658 from the town’s Law Enforcement Trust fund for enhanced ballistic body armor for the Police Department.<br /> • Heard a report on the Greater Lantana School Community Education Council from Chairwoman Lyn Tate.<br /> • Set its first budget workshop for 5:30 p.m. June 12.</p></div>Along the Coast: East winds, high tides turn beaches into seaweed labyrinthhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/along-the-coast-east-winds-high-tides-turn-beaches-into-seaweed-l2012-05-02T16:00:00.000Z2012-05-02T16:00:00.000ZDeborah Hartz-Seeleyhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/DeborahHartzSeeley<div><p><span><b><br /></b></span></p>
<p><span><b><a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960382259,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960382259,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-center" width="360" alt="7960382259?profile=original" /></a></b></span></p>
<p style="text-align:center;"><em>Adian and Sydney O'Connor look through the seaweed in</em> <br /> <em>search of sea beans while on the beach in Ocean Ridge. <strong>Tim Stepien.The Coastal Star</strong></em></p>
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<p><span><b>By Antigone Barton</b></span></p>
<p>It can be a puzzling sight: mounds of newly arrived seaweed lying in the tracks of the truck that was just there, weaving across the beach, raking the sand.</p>
<p>But it’s been a common sight in recent weeks, as beach cleaners struggled to keep up with unusually dense seaweed, the result of strong easterly winds.</p>
<p>The seaweed comes from a line of vegetation that runs by the Gulf Stream — an underwater grazing site, so to speak, popular with fish, and deep sea anglers — said David Rowland of The Beach Keeper, one of several services whose trucks tidy area sands. </p>
<p>His and other services aim to send seaweed back where it belongs, by raking it into the outgoing tide. </p>
<p>Lately that has been a Sisyphean task, however.</p>
<p>“We can rake Lantana beach at 8 a.m., and at 9 a.m. it would look like we had never been there,” Rowland said. </p>
<p>Not quite: On a recent morning a Beach Keeper driver got out of his truck to pick out the plastic bottles, cups, buckets, pieces of tackle boxes, tangled in the seaweed, until the garbage can tied to his truck was nearly full.</p>
<p>And, in any case while the seaweed may once again be more abundant than usual, it’s not any worse than last year, or the year before, when a hard east wind ushered in what we call spring here.</p>
<p>There was a time, Rowland recalls, a few years ago, when the strips of seaweed that narrow the beach now were more like mountains.</p>
<p>That seaweed surge, caused by an offshore hurricane, created an actual barrier between beach-goer and ocean, according to Tim Greener of Beach Raker, a Pompano Beach-based beach-cleaning company that serves beaches from Miami to Highland Beach. </p>
<p>With stretches two feet high and several feet wide, it took two weeks to clear.</p>
<p>And, says Rowland, at levels like that, the seaweed poses dangers to turtle hatchlings, trying to make their way back to the water.</p>
<p>“I’ve got pictures of turtles that died trying to get across it,” Rowland said.</p>
<p>That in itself does not call for removing the seaweed, said Larry Wood, a conservation biologist at the Palm Beach Zoo.</p>
<p>“That’s all part of nature,” Wood said. He compares those casualties to ones that might come from predators that hatchlings might face.</p>
<p>While heavy machinery was not part of nature’s plan, Wood said, rules and guidelines — keeping trucks from sand above the high tide line, and off the beach until volunteers have completed daily nest counts — help.</p>
<p>“As long as there are a couple of rules to be observed,” he said. “People want the beach to look a certain way, and if it doesn’t they want to change it.” </p></div>