Riviera Maya, Q.R. — The government of Quintana Roo reports an investment of over 195 million peso for the construction, acquisition and repair of equipment to containing sargassum along the state’s coasts noting that the amount allotted for this year “will be less than in 2018 and 2019″.
Admiral José Rafael Ojeda Durán, Secretary of the Navy, says that since May of last year, they began to offer sargassum support. Since then, commissions were created he said, one of the most important being how to allocate and define how the resources were to be spent. He explained that “it is not Semar (Secretaría de Marina) that defines what to buy, it is the commission of people from the state and municipal governments.”
He reported that “to date, 195.6 million peso has been received.” Of this, 109 million was spent last year to build six sargassum vessels and for the purchase of 4,252 meters of containment barriers, four beach sweepers and three tractors in addition to the repair of a sargassum vessel and a ship, spare parts, operating expenses and storage equipment.
He says that two more sargassum vessels are on their way, and that a total of eight will be distributed throughout the coastal municipalities, which he explained “is also not a matter of Semar, but the commission formed with the state government and the municipalities to see where the equipment should be placed.”
He says based on studies for May, June and July, “there will be little sargassum because the currents are helping. They are causing it to go north and in the east of the Peninsula, the arrival will be less than what was had in 2018 and 2019.”
“What we see on the beaches is mostly sea grass, which is also part of the ecosystem, but there has been almost no sargassum affection,” he said.
