STINKY Bay might lie just beyond the northernmost point of St Ouen’s Bay, but there’s been a rival aroma at the opposite end of the area in recent days.
Stormy conditions earlier this month brought large mounds of seaweed, or vraic, ashore along the sea wall just south of El Tico café, with the malodorous sludge staying put during the past weekend’s neap tides.
By Sunday the smell had become stronger, with beach users avoiding the affected area for the most part and leaving it to feasting flies and circling seagulls.
Bruce Labey – senior operations manager for the Infrastructure Department’s parks, gardens and cleaning services – said the build-up was a natural occurrence and that he anticipated it would disperse naturally over the coming days.
He said: ‘We see this after a big storm at various points around the Island, most often in the autumn but also sometimes in summer.
‘There are constraints around moving vraic off the beach – we need to have a licence, and it’s a costly process which can cause environmental damage, so we only do this when there’s a significant hazard to health.’
The government did take action in late 2022, when storms left huge mounds of rotting weed, up to four-metres deep in some parts, near the Welcome Slip at Gorey. After several weeks, contractors were deployed to clear the area at a cost of around £8,000.
With high tides of 9.8 metres and 10.2 metres over the next two evenings, Mr Labey said he anticipated the vraic would ‘almost certainly’ disappear by the end of the week.
