Playa del Carmen, Q.R. — An anti-sarsassum barrier has been installed in the waters at Parque Fundadores in central Playa del Carmen.
The barrier, which has been installed by the same company as last year, Grupo Ar-Co Mexico, will begin testing its effectiveness since the addition of the sea fence along other shores has proven successful.
Ulises Gavia Díaz, municipal director of La Zona Federal Marítimo Terrestre (Zofemat), says that the barriers contain and redirect the sargassum to the beach to be extracted by ships and brigades, adding that they have provided positive results in other tested beach areas.
Drones are also being used to detect sargassum areas from the air so that boats can be notified to collect it. What is not collected by the boats will be filtered by the sargassum barriers, and anything that does make it to shore will be manually removed.
He says that the tests are being done at the request of the state government, and although he did not provide many details, he did say over the next few days there will be announcements whether or not this will be one of the preventative strategies used for Playa del Carmen.
The sea barriers, which are 60 cm tall, are being placed approximately 100 meters offshore and anchored 80 meters from the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef to avoid environmental damage.
