Fort Myers Beach crews remove seaweed piling up on shoreline

FORT MYERS BEACH, Fla. —

Crews with the Town of Fort Myers Beach are removing large piles of seaweed from the part of the shoreline at the end of Estero Island.

"It really was bad yesterday," Fort Myers Beach resident Susan Fischer said. "A big wall of sand, or algae rather, like three feet. You just wouldn't want to walk through it at all."

Some residents, like Robert Eastman, have braved the algae to reach the Gulf.

"I had to walk through the seaweed," Eastman said. "I have to say it was kind of an ugly experience."

Crews are currently scooping up seaweed from about two miles of the shoreline at the south end of the island. Chadd Chustz from the Town of Fort Myers Beach explained that recent cold fronts brought the red drift algae.

"It's just really whenever we have these storms that wash up, it's a nearshore algae that kind of breaks off during the storms," Chustz said. "With the westerly winds, it, you know, kind of creates a bit of a hump for them to get up and over."

The seaweed is native and helps nourish the beach, which is why some of the algae will remain near the water.

"It's important to leave that source of feeding habitat for the shorebirds," Chustz said. We're coming up on shorebird nesting season, so it's an important time for them to fatten up and in time for Valentine's Day."

Eastman and others living on the beach appreciate the cleanup efforts.

"What went through my mind was 'gee, I wonder if this city is coming in just taking big, huge piles and we're going to have to overlook this,' but seeing how well they start cleaning up — very, very impressive," Eastman said.

Crews will continue to add more to the piles as they collect additional algae further south tomorrow. All of this will then be taken to an ecological compost site off the island.

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