Slimy, stinky brown seaweed that ruins beachgoers’ vacations from Mexico to Florida may be the new normal unless Brazil halts Amazon deforestation, experts say.
The culprit, called sargassum, turns clear-blue sea water a murky brown and smells like rotten eggs when it washes ashore and starts to rot.
The seaweed is a natural occurrence on beaches in the Caribbean and elsewhere. It’s part of an ecosystem for fish, crabs and birds.
But it has proliferated dramatically in recent years, covering shores with thick layers of the weed and forcing tourism officials to clean it up so visitors keep coming.
It is an icky nuisance for tourists and an economic and environmental disaster.
“We came from over there, looking for a spot that is cleaner. But it is this way everywhere,” said Maria Guadalupe Vazquez, 70, pointing off into the horizon as she lounges in a beach chair in Miami Beach.
Authorities brought in trucks and front-loaders Friday to scoop the stuff up and haul it away. They know this is no long-term solution, however.
One problem is global warming — the hotter the ocean, the more these weeds reproduce, said Steve Leatherman, an environmental expert at Florida International University.
But the bigger problem is the Amazon river, he added.
Scientists say that starting around 2011, much more land along that mighty waterway was cleared for farming.
But it yields a poor, muddy red soil so farmers use a lot of fertilizer, which rains wash into the river, where it flows into the Atlantic. And the fertilizer ends up fertilizing the sargassum.
“Now there’s 20, or 30, 50 times more, 100 times more than we’ve ever had before,” said Leatherman.
“We think this is going to be the new normal so we are going to have to find a way to deal with this, and it’s going to be difficult,” said Leatherman, aka Dr. Beach, as he drove by piles of sargassum on Miami Beach.
