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Extreme weather conditions, with winds gusting up to 50 mph and 12 foot waves caused catastrophic failures in several segments of the barrier during the day & night of June 16. Many mooring buoys detached from the barrier and ended up on the beach. These were collected on the 17th. We expect more to come ashore before the weather calms and will continue to monitor and promptly remove them from the beach. As soon as the weather calms, we will remove the barrier and assess and repair the damage.
Failures at multiple connection points occured because EPA staff was still in deployment mode when the extreme weather conditions started and did not have time to turn around and implement Step 1 of our Weather Contingency Plan known as “feathering the barrier”. (“Feathering” calls for releasing each barrier segment from one of it’s moorings so it luffs in the water (think of a sail luffing in the wind), thus reducing the forces on it)
The EPA team will conduct a careful analysis to determine how to avoid a future repeat of a mid-deployment catastrophe like this. We will then get to work on plans for earlier barrier deployment in 2025 (before the winds start to pickup in March) and will improve on our planning for any weather contingencies that might arise DURING future barrier deployments.
In the meantime we will pivot to developing a more coordinated, daily beach cleaning plan. More information on this to follow.
If you have any questions about this unfortunate turn of events or about moving forward with a more coordinated beach cleaning effort, please feel free to reach out to any of us at the numbers below.
The HMB Sargassum Project Team
<hmbsargassumproject@gmail.com>
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Marieke Brown (La Tortuga)
+52(984) 105-8475
Steve Hamilton (Playa Blanca)
+1(303) 884-5961
Alex Malison (Casa Fortuna)
+1(202) 905-6100
Arturo Orozco (Casa Orozco)
+52(906) 866-3000
Liane Perry (La Bahía)
+1(603) 930-4135
Ron Stern (Villa de los Sueños)
+1(949) 678-9102
Peter Swenson (Mi Casa del Mar)
+1(303) 903-6234
Lisa Wilson (Casa Fortuna)
+1(202) 905-6103
