Ron DeSeaweed

Recently, the east Florida coast has been plagued by massive seaweed blooms throughout most of the summer. It’s particularly bad at Jetty Park this week.

The blooms are not natural; the hypertrophy of the algae is caused by the nutrient we put into the water. The weed is called gulf weed or sea-holly or sargasso weed.

There is a particular concentration of the weed on the shore east of Jetty Park. My amateur hydrodynamical explanation is that the inshore southerly current along the coast is driven out to sea by the twin jetties enclosing the Port Canaveral inlet, and then forms an eddy south of Jetty Park.

The state owns all its beaches seaward of the Mean High Water Mark; that’s where the seaweed is. The seaweed is therefore the state’s responsibiliity. The state has done nothing to clean it up. Thousands of tourists descend on Jetty Park, an RV camping area, on holiday weekends, such as the present July 4 weekend. They didn’t come to wade through knee-deep, stinking seaweed to the water. Some enterprising volleyball players yesterday made the best of it…

...but the beach was mostly empty this morning, when usually it's thronged with visitors.

Ron DeSantis hates tourism, Florida’s biggest industry. He hates Disney, Central Florida’s biggest employer. It’s hardly surprising, then, that he has ignored this problem. The restaurants and hotels near Jetty Park can go fish, except if you try to fish, you hook Sargasso weed. The state make the excuse for its inaction a reluctance to disturb sea-turtle nests. But sea-turtles nest above the high-water mark, not below it; and any nests around Jetty Park would inevitably be trampled anyway.

What to do with the seaweed? In Ireland, traditionally, it’s raked up, loaded on a cart, dumped in a heap, and allowed to sit in the rain for six months, to wash the salt off. It’s then spread on the fields, where it provides nutrients and organic matter, but also
alginates, where are excellent soil conditioners.

It’s probably too late to clean up the beach this year, in time for July 4, but DeSantis’s negligence should be noted by local restaurant and hotel owners, and those who depend on them for their livelihood. Ron DeSantis is not your friend.

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