This year, the arrival of sargassum seaweed on the beaches of Cancun, Mexico could reach 500 thousand tons, compared to 150 thousand tons of algae collected in 2018. This was stated in an exclusive interview with Radio Formula QR by Vagner Elbiorn, director of the Federal Maritime Land Zone (ZOFEMAT) of the municipality of Benito Juarez, located on the Caribbean coast of Mexico. However, the official did not specify what his forecast was based on.
Cancun is considered the administrative center of the municipality of Benito Juarez. Thus, in 2019, three times more algae may arrive on the Kanun coast than in the previous year.
The director of ZOFEMAT said that currently only three beaches in Cancun have no algae pollution as a concern: Coral, Marlín and Delfines. On the remaining beaches of the municipality, a team of workers of 40 people daily collects and removes up to 400 tons of algae per day. The team’s task, in addition, is to clean the beaches of various debris left by vacationers: cigarette butts, beer bottle caps, plastic packaging, etc.
Wagner Elbiorn promised that this year in Cancun, with the support of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment of Mexico (SEMARNAT), the ZOFEMAT program for the collection and processing of algae will be implemented. The program involves the use of special vessels and a system of floating buoys to contain algae while still at sea. This system will be different from the anti-algae barriers that were installed last year at key locations along the Caribbean coastline but did not produce the expected results.
In February, at a major meeting of officials from the Mexican state of Quintana Roo and representatives of a hotel association, a project to build a plant for drying and processing seaweed (the so-called Puerto Morelos Protocol) was presented. Project pricing — 100 million pesos ($5.1 million). However, the sources of financing for the project remain unclear, and the issue of land allocation for the construction of the plant has not yet been resolved.
Quintana Roo State Governor Carlos Joaquín González later said that at least 500 million pesos ($25.9 million) would be allocated from the SEMARNAT budget this year to contain algae and clean up beaches. The money will be used, among other things, to purchase the necessary equipment for localizing algae in the sea. Last year, nearly 1 billion pesos was spent from various funding sources to combat algae on the beaches of Mexico's Caribbean coast.
Previously, consultants from the University of Florida and the US National Space Agency (NASA) made a forecast that in 2019 there could be no less algae on the coast of the Caribbean than last year. The forecast is based on satellite monitoring of the formation dynamics of the «spot» algae in the Western Atlantic between Brazil and Africa.
Let us recall that in 2018, on the coast of the state of Quintana Roo in Mexico, an abnormally significant amount of sargassum algae was observed, polluting the beaches and worsening the tourist attractiveness of the region. The Quintana Roo state government decided to install algae barriers in 7 municipalities, which did not solve the problem. In winter, the supply of algae to the beaches of the Caribbean coast of Mexico has seasonally decreased, but algae periodically appears in different places along the coast. The government of Quintana Roo is urgently seeking new technological solutions and sources of funding to solve the algae problem.