Playa del Carmen, Q.R. — Riviera Maya authorities are preparing for the arrival of sargassum. The Solidaridad Director of Zofemat, María de Lourdes Várguez Ocampo, said the municipality is already getting ready to deal with its arrival.
She said that the vegetation that has been arriving on local beaches is actually red seaweed that shows up when temperatures drop.
“What we are seeing is that there is confusion between the red brown algae, like wine red, that arrives when the temperatures drop. Right now we have been collecting mostly about 80 percent red algae. It is not sargassum,” she explained.
She said in preparation for the upcoming Riviera Maya sargassum season in April, Solidaridad is reserving twice as many beach cleaning machines to deal with the inevitable problem.
Ocampo pointed out that the sargassum shows up year round, however, there are months when its arrival is intense. Those months are generally April to September, during the warmer temperature months. However, sometimes, the sargassum continues to show up on beaches well into October.
For the 2023 season, the municipality of Solidaridad is preparing with more machinery, sargassum removal tools and equipment but with the same amount of staff.
“The leasing of machinery and equipment is already scheduled, both with federal funds and with sanitation funds. We believe that we have guaranteed clean beaches like we had last year, which I consider will be much better this year due to the number of machine that are being rented,” she said.
