Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says clean-up ef­forts are al­ready un­der­way af­ter thick sar­gas­sum sea­weed washed ashore on some of the is­land’s most pop­u­lar beach­es yes­ter­day.

Video footage from Store Bay showed beach­go­ers strug­gling to wade through the dense mat of sea­weed, which stretched across much of the bay’s sur­face.

This morn­ing, Au­gus­tine told the me­dia that clear­ing op­er­a­tions be­gan yes­ter­day and will con­tin­ue as long as the sar­gas­sum re­mains. He shared pho­tos from Store Bay, Swal­lows, and Pi­geon Point, not­ing that the is­land is cur­rent­ly ex­pe­ri­enc­ing neap tides af­fect­ing clean up at North Beach Pi­geon Point. 

"The sar­gas­sum in this area is tak­ing a lit­tle long to beach," Au­gus­tine said. "How­ev­er, we are em­ploy­ing strate­gies to re­move the sar­gas­sum from in the wa­ter."

De­spite the mess, Au­gus­tine says the beach­es re­main open to the pub­lic.

He added that the Di­vi­sion of Food Se­cu­ri­ty will over­see clean-up from Mag­dale­na to Lam­beau and Spey­side. So far, the ef­fort has been man­aged us­ing ex­ist­ing staff and URP work­ers, with no ex­tra ex­pen­di­ture he said. How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine clar­i­fied the pub­lic will be no­ti­fied if that changes.