Sargassum Fuels Growing Erosion Crisis in San Pedro

Beach restoration efforts in San Pedro are moving forward, but progress remains slow as environmental experts caution against quick fixes that sacrifice long-term sustainability. According to Valentine Rosado, short-term solutions may offer immediate relief but risk undermining the future of the shoreline. He points to mounting challenges hindering conservationists, from balancing public and business interests to tackling the persistent sargassum crisis that continues to affect the island’s beaches. Today he shreds more details on that.

 

Valentine Rosado, Science Advisor, San Pedro Town Council

“When it comes to our beach restoration sites, we want to ensure that the areas that we’re restoring, that we have some kind of protection for these areas. Because if we go in one day we nourish a beach and then we have a business owner that comes in and says, oh, I wanna put my tables and my chairs there, then they actually affect everything that was restored as part of the process. So there has to be a balance and we’re trying to find that balance. And challenges, obviously there’s a lot of challenges because you’re dealing with personalities, different businesses, and you’re dealing with the public. They still want access to the business, but they want access to the beach. So there has to be a lot of dialogue happening. And on top of that, then we have the sargassum situation. The sargassum situation is not separate and apart. The sargassum situation is just a small component of the entire shoreline program, but for us, the priority is to ensure that we think long term. Al the science and all the research that we have done by linking with partners and other beach areas in different parts of the world, shows us that we are able to restore a beach and maintain a living shoreline. We just have to stick to the science and we just have to take our time and work through the process to get there. But everything is pointing us that direction. We can keep our beach. We do not have to put a sea wall, we do not have to dredge in front of our island. There are ways and the information is available for us to restore our beach.”

 

Britney Gordon

“Is there any overlap in with the erosion and the sargassum cleanup efforts? We’ve found that, through the years, one of the most effective ways to, deal with the sargassum is simply just to shovel it away.”

 

Valentine Rosado

“Yes. Would you say that has contributed to all the erosion. Yes, for sure. If you remove the sargassum, you’re taking sun away from the sargassum. If you leave the sargassum there, the sargassum sits, it decomposes, it becomes acidic, and it does affect the beach. So whatever you do, the sargassum does affect the beach and in a significant manner. We’re addressing the challenges that we had before Sargassum right now. But then at the same time, we cannot ignore the fact that Sargassum is also causing a lot of problems and will continue to cause problems.”