And if government is serious about mitigation, they might have to invest in Sargassum harvesters - the kind they have in San Pedro. But there are reports that the one on San Pedro is being rented out for private hire - especially for weddings and other big events that don't want the sight or the smell of Sargassum befouling their special occasion.
But, is that int he public interest - to have these public assets for private hire? Reports suggest that they may also be working for private gain!
We asked the NEMO Minister about it - and he said that if persons can pay for private usage, they should:
Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service, Governance & Disaster Risk Management
"No, I have no idea if that is the case or not. What I can say and the information that I received is that it costs about $350 to have these boats out, doing the cleanup per hour. Yes. So I think it's more an idea of who has the resources to utilise them. As a matter of fact, I know that the municipal government in San Pedro has expended quite a bit of resources to do beach cleanup, working with the local hotels, working with partners in their municipality. So it's an ultimate effort. It's really not, a situation where, I don't think that private persons are utilising it to the detriment of the local authorities. It's just that who is willing to pay the resources to get these things working you know."
"So like everything else, it's a lack of resources that you can use. Yes there are areas where you can turn sargassum into energy sources, into different material. But the sargassum comes with a lot of heavy metal. And that is really the biggest environmental risk. It comes with, with Led etc.. Heavy metals that you have to extract to be able to turn it into whatever you're going to do. That extraction process is costly. So we have to look at ways in which we can find the resources to be able to do that. But in the meantime, we have to look at how we are going to dispose of it, how we're going to remove it from the areas where they are right now. And I do think going back to the last question, that the Minister of Tourism or BTB is going to assist this San Pedro Town Council, we're trying to get some resources to be able to, use the,"
"I forget the name of the boats that were to use the boats to go there to do the clean up."
Sargassum season usually lasts until September or October.
