Beaches closed due to green algae



It was only a matter of time. If Brittany did not have to suffer from extreme heat at the start of summer, it knew that it had a large stock of green algae in its waters. Blame it on a slightly stormy winter not really conducive to dispersing the ulvae offshore. After early strandings, the town hall of Hillion has just taken the first orders to close its beaches. According to West France, the Hôtellerie and Saint-Guimond beaches will remain closed “until further notice” and are prohibited from access, due to the danger of inhaling the hydrogen sulphide generated by the putrefaction. The municipality is unable to collect the algae in these sectors of silt where the machines cannot venture.

This inability to clean the coast annoys the mayor of the town Mickaël Cosson. “We are able to send people into space, but are we using a tractor to pick up algae on a beach?” Rather than seeing stocks spilling onto our beaches, could we not pick them up at sea? », Lamented the mayor of Hillion when we contacted him at the beginning of June.

The town located at the end of the bay of Saint-Brieuc is one of the most affected by the Breton plague. Since the start of the year, 90% of strandings have been concentrated in this bay, one of the eight under surveillance in the region. Here as elsewhere, the State, farmers and communities will have to do more to improve the situation. This is what emerges from the vitriolic report of the Court of Auditors, which judged the means of fight “insufficient”.

“On the beach, there is no more life”

In the town of Hillion, some have been campaigning for years to try to alert on the phenomenon. Like André Ollivro, from the Halte aux marées verte association. When we met him, the indefatigable activist told us about his memories “from before” on the beach of Grandville. “On the beach, there is no more life. No more clams, no more bloodworms. Before, we used to go mackerel fishing but we only collect algae in our nets, so we stopped. Here, green algae are everywhere and all the time ”.



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