MASSIVE CLEAN-UP EFFORT UNDER WAY

GOVERNMENT is treating the return of the Sargassum seaweed to the island’s shores as a national emergency.

Minister of Maritime Affairs and Blue Economy, Kirk Humphrey, told the media yesterday during a press conference at Bath, St. John, where the seaweed was being removed, that all resources have been pulled from various government depart-ments and the private sector, to get the vegetable matter which has been having a negative impact on the fishing industry, under control.

As was done in 2015, when an influx of the seaweed invaded the island’s shores, creating a headache for the tourism industry, the Barbados Defence Force (BDF) has been roped into the national effort, spearheading the clean-up effort not only at Bath, but also at a number of other beaches across the island.

“We have to, as a matter of priority for Barbadians, remove the seaweed. It is our understanding that most of the seaweed comes in on the east and the north coast, and then it makes its way towards the south coast. Even if we can cut it off from its source point, where it comes in on the east coast, we would be able to prevent it from going onto the south coast beaches, which as you know is part of our tourism belt.

“In any event, by the time it reaches the south coast it is already at a point at which it has deteriorated, to a point where it is no longer able to be used for anything of value. What we are getting here now is something that is of some value, we consider it harvesting the seaweed that it can be used for something else,” the Minister said.

Chief of Staff of the BDF, Colonel Glyne Grannum, said the Force is proud to be a part of the joint inter-agency effort to deal with the removal of the seaweed from the shores. He said that yesterday soldiers were deployed to seven beaches including Bath, Skeetes Bay, Foul Bay, Crane, Silver Sands and the Enterprise area, Barclays Park, the East Coast and Long Beach.

“Over the weekend the effort is going to encompass River Bay up in the north. As was already mentioned, there is a high risk of the seaweed coming around the south coast in a clockwise direction and impacting on the west coast. So our effort today is to deal with the areas which are likely to cause an impact and to stop it from coming around to the west coast,” Colonel Grannum said.

The army leader explained that a co-ordination centre has been set up at St. Ann’s Fort, designed to assist with the co-ordination of a wide range of governmental and non-governmental agencies involved in the clean-up effort, as well as to deal with information management.

As for the long-term plan for the seaweed, Minister Humphrey said the focus is on transporting the microalgae to the Sustainable Barbados Recycling Centre (SBRC), while the private sector is being urged to look into the use of the seaweed to create energy, noting that there is evidence that it can be converted to real energy to be used in Barbadian households.

“We believe that the Sargassum is not only a problem, but that it is a resource, and that we have to use it as a resource,” Minister Humphrey said.

“I know there are some people who were concerned about the fact that we were bringing machinery to the beaches. But we have been speaking to the persons who are environmentalists and one of the things we did is to make sure that we are not trampling on any of the Turtle nesting areas as we sought to remove the Sargassum seaweed from the beach,” he added. (AH)