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Nearly £8,000 has been spent on moving seaweed down Gorey beach after coastal residents complained that they were being plagued by small flies in their homes and a stench of rotting weed.
The issue of the vraic was raised in a written question submitted by Deputy Mary Le Hegarat to the Minister for Infrastructure, Deputy Tom Binet.
Deputy Le Hegarat asked Deputy Binet to "explain the purpose of the digger moving Vraic around the beach at Gorey".
Deputy Binet explained that the "high spring tides and associated storm winds in early November left significant amounts of vraic deposited 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 stranded 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."
Pictured: The seaweed can be used as fertiliser.
The Infrastructure Minister explained that the seaweed left at the Welcome Slip in Gorey 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 is 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 decided course of action was not to remove the vraic, but to move it down the beach and into the path of the incoming water so that it will "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 this on two occasions. Deputy Binet explained that a payloader and 16 tonne tipper truck were hired in for two days on the 10 and 11 November, and again on the 14 November to take the vraic down to the tide line to be washed away.
However, the Minister for Infrastructure described these two attempts as but "only partially successful".
"A further attempt between the 28 November and 2 December was successful in clearing the thick deposits", Deputy Binet added.
Deputy Le Hegarat also enquired about the "estimated costs of this work".
The Minister for Infrastructure confirmed that the total cost of the hire of the payloader and tipper truck across all three attempts was £7,978.05.
Deputy Binet re-iterated that these seaweed clearance operations are only undertaken in exceptional circumstances due the fact that the vraic and its associated microfauna forms an important food source for migrating and resident birds, as well as the high cost.
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