Seaweed full of flesh-eating bacteria swarm Florida beaches
6 Min Read
The massive swath of seaweed creeping across the Atlantic Ocean toward Florida may carry deadly flesh-eating bacteria.
-
Lakes Beach is covered in sargassum in St. Andrew along the east coast of Barbados, Wednesday, July 27, 2022 (AP)
The 5,000-mile wide blob of murky seaweed slithering menacingly across the Atlantic before dumping itself along the US coastline might have been a suspenseful story.
However, after the massive clumps of the 13 million ton morass labeled the Great Atlantic sargassum belt are washing up on Florida beaches, scientists warn of a real-life threat posed by the heaps of rotting algae, notably high concentrations of the flesh-eating Vibrio bacteria hiding in the vegetation.
The troubling finding by marine biologists at Florida Atlantic University (FAU) adds a perilous new dimension to the brown seaweed invasion, which is already threatening to ruin the state's lucrative summer travel season as coats of decaying goop emit a strong odor resembling that of rotten eggs.
What is even more concerning, according to the experts, is how ocean pollution contributes to the growth of the bacteria, which, if ingested, can lead to illness and even death. As a result of the debris interaction with the bacteria and algae in the samples studied from the Atlantic's Caribbean and Sargasso Sea, a "perfect pathogen storm [with] implications for both marine life and public health" was created.
Read: Coming years 'critical' to slash plastic pollution: UN
Tracy Mincer, assistant professor of biology at FAU’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Harriet L Wilkes Honors College, said their lab work proved that "these Vibrio are extremely aggressive and can seek out and stick to plastic within minutes."
According to him, the seaweed belt that stretches from the Gulf of Mexico to the coast of Africa serves as the ideal breeding habitat for "omnivorous" strains of bacteria that prey on both plant and animal life, as well as accompanying "microbial flora" that may contain pathogens with high pathogenic potential.
"We really want to make the public aware of these associated risks. In particular, caution should be exercised regarding the harvest and processing of sargassum biomass until the risks are explored more thoroughly," Mincer said.
Many people are concerned about this, including municipal workers tasked with cleaning up washed-up seaweed off Florida's beaches to make them more appealing to tourists, as well as groups of volunteers who care about the environment and fill garbage bags with the debris that has washed ashore.
According to the founder of the non-profit Clean Miami Beach, Sophie Ringel, it has been "very alarming in the first place to see it on the beaches, and alarming to see all the plastic that is entangled in it. And now even more than that, there’s harmful bacteria too. That’s so scary."
In order to avoid direct contact with the items they remove, recruits will take precautions like wearing thick gloves, using hand sanitizer, and using long-handled grabbers for the beach cleaning on Saturday to commemorate World Ocean Day.
Ringel added that they will be paying more attention and ensuring that after the cleanup, everybody cleans their hands and does not touch their faces. However, she wondered, "What happens if we ingest it or come in contact with it? Is it transferable? And when it rains, does it end up in our drinking water?"
-
Sargassum on the sand at Juan Dolio Beach, near San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic, last month (AFP)
Sargassum should be avoided, according to Florida's Department of Health, which also cautions that Vibrio vulnificus infections "can be severe for people who have weakened immune systems, such as those with chronic liver disease."
The Florida legislature has allocated $5 million to help local governments with cleanup operations, according to the state's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), which also claims to be collaborating with towns, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, and other agencies to monitor the seaweed belt.
Jon Moore, a DEP spokesman, told The Guardian that this is "not a new phenomenon and many local governments, particularly in South Florida, are experienced in managing it on their beaches and already have management plans and the necessary authorizations in place to respond."
Crews with heavy machinery remove most sargassum on Miami Beach, and two more on Key Biscayne, after surveyors check for turtle nests to make sure that the beaches of the popular tourist place stay clean and attractive and to remove the threat of infection or respiratory distress from hydrogen sulfide.
Tom Morgan, chief of operations for Miami-Dade County’s parks, recreation, and open spaces, said their beach maintenance crews "are instructed to wear gloves if they’re removing anything from the water’s edge and the sargassum related to plastics, or any other type of debris, pieces of wood or anything like that."
The County anticipates spending $6 million on seaweed removal this year, although it is illegal and undesirable to remove sargassum from the water before it washes ashore.
Crabs, shrimp, and other marine invertebrates depend on it for their survival, and they in turn give gulls, terns, and other seabirds like plovers a bountiful floating "buffet" of food. Unfortunately, the sargassum belt's toxicity can also be dangerous.
As per Ringel, the plastic they find in the seaweed on a daily basis is shocking, and the animals out in the ocean try to get nutrition from it and automatically ingest the plastic.
One encouraging development is that the amount of sargassum in the Atlantic unexpectedly declined by approximately 15% in May, and is anticipated to fall in the Gulf of Mexico this month, according to researchers at the University of South Florida (USF), who have followed it using satellite photography.
Overall, though, scientists have seen significant increases in sargassum during the past ten years and anticipate that trend to continue.
