Last week Tuesday, the San Pedro Town Council declared sargassum beaching on Ambergris Caye a natural disaster. Large quantities of sargassum, that brown seaweed that is usually present near coastal communities, have washed ashore, and it has created a huge eyesore in San Pedro.
That’s a major problem for the island which depends on tourism, and since the tourists come to enjoy the San Pedro’s beaches, the sargassum beaching could hurt the industry. The Council acknowledges that sargassum beaching has occurred in the past, but they say that this time, it is the worst it has ever been. They also say that they’ve used all their resources to keep the beaches cleaned to an acceptable level, but this amount of sargassum is just too big for them to handle alone.
The council has enlisted an expert consultant to advise them on how to mitigate against the tons of sargassum that has washed up unto the beach. The Council has also organized massive community clean up campaigns, and a San Pedro Sargassum Task Force Group has been formed.
On last week Thursday and Friday, the community of San Pedro organized with the task force and the council to attempt a clean up of the downtown area. 232 San Pedranos came out and volunteered almost 2100 hours of free labor. That allowed them to remove 1,700 yards of sargassum, or 144 truckloads of the seaweed.
The total cost of the 2-day clean up is equivalent to $22,800.
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