GOREY residents have been blighted by a plague of small flies and the smell of rotting seaweed washed up in vast quantities on the beach – prompting the government to spend almost £8,000 moving it.
The vraic was eventually moved with two trucks in three separate attempts, Infrastructure Minister Tom Binet said, with the first two attempts described as ‘only partially successful’.
Responding to a written question from Deputy Mary Le Hegarat, Deputy Binet said ‘high spring tides and associated storm winds in early November left significant amounts of vraic’ along the east coast, from Havre des Pas to Gorey.
As the tides reduced, a large amount of seaweed became stranded at the high-water line. Deputy Binet said that this vraic was then monitored by officers ‘following complaints from residents who had suffered small black flies in their homes and the smell from the rotting weed’.
The minister explained that the seaweed deposits left at the Welcome Slip on Longbeach were ‘by far the most concerning’.
He described how ‘they ran for over 200m along the beach and over 50m down from the high-tide line’, adding that they ‘were also the thickest, from 2m to 4m deep in some places including against the sea wall’.
Deputy Binet clarified that the Infrastructure, Housing and Environment Department was permitted to move vraic in ‘exceptional circumstances’.
He explained: ‘It was decided that the deposit of vraic near the Welcome Slip could not be left for a further two weeks until the next spring tides floated the stranded vraic away, and so contractors were asked to clear the vraic away from the sea wall.’
The government decided to move it down the beach and into the path of the incoming water so thatit would ‘hopefully float away from the residential areas’.
Deputy Binet explained that ‘this relies on the wind being in the right direction’.
He said that contractors attempted to move the vraic on two occasions. Deputy Binet said that a payloader and 16-tonne tipper truck were hired on 10 and 11 November, and again on 14 November to take the seaweed down to the tide line to be washed away.
‘A further attempt between 28 November and 2 December was successful in clearing the thick deposits,’ Deputy Binet added.
The total cost of the hire of the payloader and tipper truck across all three attempts was £7,978.
Deputy Binet said that these seaweed clearance operations were undertaken only in ‘exceptional circumstances’ due the fact that the vraic and its ‘associated microfauna’ formed an important food source for migrating and resident birds – as well as the high cost.
