Fourteen years after the first invasion of Sargasse algae in Guadeloupe and Martinique and while new massive influxes have been invading their coast for a few weeks, the French islands are gradually advancing on the question of their valuation.
“We cannot say today or tomorrow that we are going to do this or that with the Sargasses. What is important is to do research.” During the Sargcoop II congress, which was held at the end of March at the Gosier, the president of the Guadeloupe region, Ary Chalus, paid attention to “Ideas on site, some of which worked in coalition with all the Caribbean” And intends to “continue this work”.
He is particularly interested “At the forecast” of these arrivals of brown algae from the Atlantic, because “Imagine that a company is investing 5 or 10 million in a valuation plant and that tomorrow there are no more sargasses, what do we do?”he wonders.
And to recall the sums “Huge” Spended by communities and the State to divert, collect or store these algae which give off toxic gases when they rot once stranded. “Not far from 30 million euros for Guadeloupe, between 2018 to 2024,” said her vice-president in charge of the environment, Sylvie Gustave dit Duflot.
The stake is economic, health and environmental, underlines Ferry Louisy, vice-president of the Departmental Council of Guadeloupe. He underlines, with other elected officials, “The disturbance of marine biodiversity” and call for “A collective commitment”. “For the moment it’s just stored, so you have to value.”
Bricks or cosmetics
“The EU says it’s time to go on valuation. But how do you value when you don’t have the same health standards?”wonders Ms. Gustave dit Duflot. “First do you have to decontaminate?she explains, because In France, one cannot value something filled with heavy metals, arsenic and – specificity of the French Antilles – of Chlordecone “this pesticide used until 1993 despite the alerts on its dangerousness which durably contaminated soils and waters.
The valuation tracks exist: “Biofuels, bricks, cosmetics or even biochar, coal with which to amend the soils, which improves its fertilization properties and could, according to some research, to kidnap the chlordecone”explains Charlotte Gully, coordinator of the circular economy center at Ademe Martinique.
In terms of “Valuation, you have to give time to time”she believes, because if “In the laboratory, it works, now the big question, it’s how to get to the industrial scale”.
“Little by little, we close the doors, we are experiencing in a more and more applied way to be able to say for France ‘the strategy, it will be that’”, she continues.
ADEME launched a call for projects with the National Research Agency “to support the pilots, demonstrators on the territory,” explains Ms. Gully.
Among the studies under study, Ulises Jauregui, professor of environmental sciences at the Technological Institute of Santo Domingo (Dominican Republic), hopes to develop in Martinique “A process that significantly lowers arsenic contents” of Sargasse, to transform it into “Bio liquid fertilizer”.
“Pooling”
However, for Olivier Marie-Reine, president of the Bleue Economy Commission to the Martinique Local Collectivity, “You have to sort through all these ideas, because they are economic opportunities for some, but it is expensive.”
Calls him to “Pool in the long term, otherwise the bill will be huge”. He evokes the challenges of everyday life: “collection at sea” and deviant dams “(preventing the Sargassus for the ground on the coast), on which” there was good and at least well “.
For Ms. Gully, the two territories have “the same concern: developing storage sites, waterproofing, which recover sargassum juices, which treat them? And a” same problem “which is “To identify the land to do this because on our islands, it’s complicated”.
Until then, and while the Sargassus 3 plan is in preparation, it is necessary “Talking about sargassum” International, insists Sylvie Gustave dit Duflot, who would like to see, at the Ocean Congress in Nice in June, “The Sargassum Theme […] mentioned during the final statement with all heads of state, because from the moment when a theme is mentioned internationally, it becomes a reality and it is necessary to take care of it. “
