Playa del Carmen, Q.R. — The city of Playa del Carmen is in the process of hiring more workers for the upcoming sargassum season. The director of the Federal Maritime Terrestrial Zone (Zofemat) of the municipality, María de Lourdes Varguez Ocampo, said they are going to add to the 125 personnel they already have.
The current 125 personnel are part of the municipality’s beach cleaning brigades. Aside from additional people, Varguez says they are also in the acquisition process of new machinery, including sieves, dump trucks, tractors and new manual equipment.
She pointed out that they are bracing for a large arrival of sargassum at the end of February, which is the reason for the earlier than usual preparation, even though the next sargassum season doesn’t officially begin until the end of March.
She says a general sanitation project, made up of federal and municipal funds, is already being prepared in order to face the inevitable arrival of the seaweed. Close coordination is being maintained between Zofemat and the Secretary of the Navy (SEMAR) with permanent monitoring throughout the coastal strip.
Last week, Lenin Amaro Betancourt, president of the Business Coordinating Council of Riviera Maya, said a meeting was being held to determine the feasibility of constructing a dock especially for sargassum vessels.
