Beachgoers at South Inlet Park in Boca Raton must navigate trash in addition to seaweed. Photo provided by Bill Miller

By Cheryl Blackerby
For four years, Bill Miller has walked across A1A from his condo in Boca Raton to the county beach at South Inlet Park, and for four years he’s been fuming about the garbage on the beach.
“I’ve complained about seaweed, debris, soda bottles, tin cans, cigarette butts, broken bottles. I’ve seen condoms and syringes,” he said. The problem is so bad he advises beachgoers to wear shoes on the beach.
It’s especially galling, he says, when he looks over at Boca and Deerfield beaches, which he said are noticeably more pristine. “Palmetto Park beach is nice and clean, and you go up to Spanish River Park beach and it’s nice and clean.”
He said he called the county, and someone came out to take photos, “but the beach hasn’t gotten better.”
His biggest complaint is about piles of seaweed, which he said smell and attract bugs. But the ugliness of seaweed lies in the eye of the beholder. Environmentalists say seaweed provides food for seabirds and helps stabilize sand and dunes.
The county stopped picking up seaweed on its beaches in 2010, said Debbie Thatcher, public information service manager for the Palm Beach County Parks and Recreation Department.
“It’s not raked. It was part of a budget reduction. It was more of a dollars-and-cents thing, but we do pick up trash, and we do try to encourage volunteers,” she said, adding that seaweed is “a good food source for wildlife, and it breaks down and fertilizes dune vegetation.”
Just in case Miller gets any ideas about tackling the seaweed himself, individuals are not allowed to rake seaweed, Thatcher said. A permit from the Department of Environmental Protection is required for raking because of turtle nesting and other wildlife issues, she said.
Debris is regularly picked up by crews in the early morning before most people arrive. “The south end of the county and South Inlet Park beach in particular is checked and maintained every single day,” she said.
But Michael Halasz, one of the founders of Sea Angels (seaangels.org), a volunteer organization that cleans Ocean Inlet Park and other beaches, agrees with Miller on the state of South Inlet Park beach, which his group has cleaned.
“We recently did one of our green projects down there, and the beach is really dirty. It’s heavily used, and the county has refused to put more garbage bins and recycling bins there,” Halasz said. “We’ve offered to clean that beach, but the county won’t waive the parking fees for us and our volunteers.”
He said the county doesn’t do a good job cleaning its beaches. “They empty garbage cans and they leave. The city of Boca takes it more seriously. They banned smoking on the beaches, and it seems like their park beaches are cleaner. The county needs to step up.”
But his group doesn’t pick up seaweed. “We don’t have a problem with seaweed. It’s a natural food source for wildlife — unless refuse is trapped in the seaweed, then we’ll pick up the trash.”