Below is an article I wrote for today’s issue of La Voz about cleaning sargassum from the beach. The board voted 5-3 to exclude it because they objected to any mention of EcoProteccion Akumal (EPA) in La Voz. EPA is a Mexican non-profit that a group of Vecinos members established to manage the HMB sargassum barrier, which has become a major point of contention in our community.

The article is about beach cleaning and doesn’t mention the barrier at all, but several board members are among those most strongly opposed to the barrier and have been publicly criticized by EPA for legal actions taken to block it. The personal feelings of individual board members about EPA should not influence how La Voz informs the community about important issues. 

Vecinos and La Voz belong to the members, not to the board. The content of the article is not in dispute, so La Voz should have published the facts and let the members decide about EPA for themselves. 

Neil Canter

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Sargassum Season is Here

ZOFEMAT will help if it can, but responsibility for cleaning falls mainly on owners

Spring is here, bringing warmer weather, the beginning of the end of tourist high season, nesting season for our beloved sea turtles, and, unfortunately, sargassum. Below is a photo of the Half Moon Bay beach on April 9, 2024.

Sargassum is a genus of large brown seaweed (a type of algae) that floats in island-like masses and never attaches to the seafloor.

Sargassum season typically runs from March through September, peaking in May and June. When it piles up on the beach, it is unsightly, can become smelly and toxic, and makes the beach unusable for residents, tourists, and even turtles, if it blocks mothers from laying eggs or hatchlings from getting to the sea.

ZOFEMAT helps where it can. Thanks to the efforts of Ivan Penie, the project manager at EcoProteccion Akumal, ZOFEMAT has come to Half Moon Bay four times so far this year to clean the beach of sargassum at no charge to owners.

But ZOFEMAT doesn't have the resources to clean all beaches in the area, so it focuses its resources on major public beaches used by tourists. Satellite forecasts project a large increase in sargassum coming to Riviera Maya beaches in the coming weeks. That will stretch ZOFEMAT resources even thinner, so, it's not clear if and when they will be able to return to Half Moon Bay.

As a result, if owners want the beaches in front of their properties cleared of sargassum, they will need to arrange for cleaning and disposal and pay all associated costs themselves.

Here are guidelines published by EcoProteccion Akumal for effective beach cleaning:

• If possible, begin DAILY beach cleaning during low tide.
  
• If the beached sargassum is more than 8 inches deep, shovel the top layer into a wheelbarrow for removal, being careful to AVOID removing the most sand-laden sections.
  
• Wheel each load to a properly maintained temporary disposal area for retrieval by dump truck. In 2024, ZOFEMAT may install special Sargassum Dumpsters on the jungle side of the road and take responsibility for hauling the collected sargassum away.
  
• For remaining sargassum LESS THAN 8 inches deep, use a rake to spread the it over a wider area to promote drying and desiccation before it starts to rot.
  
• Do not return sargassum to the water.  Although it is sometimes okay to do this in small amounts, in our bay it is not worth the risk of it stagnating and rotting, causing harmful environmental and health effects.
  
• Under no circumstances should you allow a sargassum “wall” to develop.  This will only make matters worse by increasing erosion due to backwash, and increasing the amount of sargassum floating and rotting in the water.
  
• Sargassum piles in temporary holding areas should be spaced and not taller than 50 cm to maximize air flow and drying, and minimize rotting.  

• If necessary, spray sargassum piles in temporary holding areas with Micro Organismos, an organic product that slows rotting.

• This is what the beachfront should look like after daily sargassum management.
  

If it were any other organization doing the work on the beach, I'm sure there would be no problem mentioning it.  But because it’s EcoProteccion Akumal and the HMB Sargasso Project, and there’s a personal conflict there between certain individuals, we don’t get to mention the organization and give them due credit for the work being done for our community. 

Vecinos works with, supports and has probably acknowledged, at some point over the years, just about every other organization in and around Akumal.  Everyone but EPA.  This is not neutrality and not community inclusion.  

With a swipe of the censor’s pen Vecinos thumbs its nose at its beachfront neighbors. When did civic pride exclude the beach.

We are shocked that an organization purported to aid the community would choose to intentionally block any mention, let alone help the community to manage the envioromental disaster on our doorstep. This may not be the kind of organization we can  get behind , Luna Azul homeowners overwhelmingly have supported sargasso mitigation and prevention and our voices  have been ignored . Perhaps the President of Vencinos and those who voted for this censorship should do the right thing and resign.  Vencinos needs change. 

When I learned that the Vecinos newsletter had been censored to exclude any mention of sargassum season, I decided enough was enough and sent this email to concerned neighbors with a cc to each Vecinos board member.  See below for the dismissive replies I received from the President and Secretary of Vecinos.  

I realize we don’t have community consensus on the best way to address the toxic impact of sargassum infestations and recognize the right of each of us to hold our own opinions.  So, the goal of my original email was not to advocate on behalf of beach cleaning or other sargassum mitigation techniques.  I was simply arguing against censorship.  

I was hopeful my email would convince the board to reconsider their decision to withhold information from the community.  Regardless of where you stand on sargassum mitigation, I trust you will agree that, on controversial issues like this, more information is always better than less.  For example, sharing these sobering facts about Sargassum Infestation Events (SIEs) from the US Environmental Protection Agency does not require anyone to support a particular sargassum mitigation strategy.  Nor does reporting on these sargassum mitigation techniques recommended by the Mexican government.  

Yet, here is how the President and Secretary of Vecinos responded to my concerns about censorship:

On Fri, May 3, 2024 at 11:33 AM Ricardo Mangione <presidente@vecinosakumalnorte.org> wrote:

Lisa, the article about sargasso was not published because of Neil’s and Scott’s obtuse view about the sargasso problem in our Community, Vecinos was ready to give credit to Ivan and ZOFEMAT but Vecinos will not give you any chance to twist the information and make it EPA propaganda. 

EPA is the owner of the barrier and we as an association will continue to be neutral regarding the barrier and your group (EPA), that has misled our members about the barrier‘s t the barriers effectiveness will also continuing to deny the damage of the Barry effectiveness while also continuing to deny the damage that the barrier has caused  to our reef.

On May 2, 2024, at 8:38 PM, carlysays <carlysays@yahoo.com> wrote:

Getting a bit paranoid, Lisa.

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Comments on these email from members of the HMB Sargassum Project are posted below.