Three months af­ter warn­ing that To­ba­go’s wind­ward coast was un­der siege from sar­gas­sum sea­weed, To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion (TH­TA) pres­i­dent Regi­nald MacLean says help is fi­nal­ly on the way.

MacLean con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day that some of the spe­cialised equip­ment promised un­der a US$25 mil­lion Unit­ed Na­tions De­vel­op­ment Pro­gramme (UNDP) ini­tia­tive has ar­rived in T&T.

The project, fund­ed by Japan, is be­ing shared among five Caribbean is­lands, with part of the sup­port des­ig­nat­ed for Spey­side, To­ba­go.

MacLean said the pack­age in­cludes 1,000 me­tres of sar­gas­sum boom, an alu­mini­um barge with a con­vey­or belt, bas­kets, trucks, lifts, and main­te­nance equip­ment. He said some of the gear was now in the coun­try, but he’s still await­ing de­tails on which pieces have land­ed.

He said he was not ex­act­ly sure where they’re be­ing stored or which of the items are in this batch, but he con­firmed that the equip­ment had ar­rived and should be com­ing to To­ba­go.

Just last week, beach­es like Store Bay and Pi­geon Point were cleared by the THA af­ter a fresh sar­gas­sum surge—on­ly for an­oth­er wave of sea­weed to re­turn hours lat­er.

—Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les