A record amount of seaweed is smothering Caribbean coasts from Puerto Rico to Barbados as tons of brown algae kill wildlife, choke the tourism industry and release toxic gases.
Long Beach is covered with sargassum in Crest Church parish along the south coast of Barbados, Wednesday, July 27, 2022. More than 24 million tons of sargassum blanketed the Atlantic in June, shattering the all-time record, set in 2018, by 20%, according to the University of South Florida’s Optical Oceanography Lab. And unusually large amounts of the brown algae have drifted into the Caribbean Sea.
“Maybe I should give up. ... Sometimes I think I should go into the mountains and herd sheep, but this is what I know to do," he said. “What’s next? We had Hurricane Irma, we had COVID, we had the sargassum, and now I’m pretty scared of global warming.” She said large masses of seaweed have a severe environmental impact, with the decaying algae altering water temperatures and the pH balance and leading to declines in seagrass, coral and sponges.The “golden tide” also has hit humans hard.
In addition, the U.S. Virgin Islands' electricity generating station relies on ultra-pure water from the desalination plant to reduce emissions. The loss of such water would force the government to use a type of diesel fuel that is more expensive and in limited supply, officials said. On Union Island, which is part of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the seaweed invasion has forced some resorts in recent years to close for up to five months.
In the Cayman Islands, officials launched a trial program in which crews pumped more than 2,880 square feet of seaweed out of the water. But on Tuesday, the government announced it suspended the project, saying the seaweed had decomposed so much that it had rendered the pumping useless.