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On the Saint-Jean site, located between the Super U store and the construction site for the future shopping center developed by SCI La Savane, trucks loaded with sargassum come and go every day. In their beds, sargassum seaweed torn from the sand of the beaches where it washed ashore. The main consequence: on the plot of land in Saint-Jean, the freshly collected seaweed piles up on top of other, rotting seaweed, which is losing its substance and drying out in the sun. All of this forms a small, foul-smelling mound.
Since the beginning of 2026, according to a letter dated April 9 from the president of the territorial council, more than 3,530 tons of Sargassum seaweed washed up on the beaches of Saint-Barthélemy (3,537, to be precise) have been collected by the contractors awarded the contract by the Collectivité. The pile of Sargassum in Saint-Jean was reduced by 2,670 and 2,246 tons after being transported by barge to Saint Martin.
In April 2025, just before a massive invasion (approximately 15,406 tons collected between May and August), Territorial Councilor Rudi Laplace (of the Saint-Barth d’Abord group) took up the sargassum issue. An issue that had made little progress since the start of the term. Apart from the annual investments for collecting washed-up sargassum, of course. This amounts to, on average since 2022, nearly two million euros per year. Since then, in collaboration with the Collectivité’s environmental department, Rudi Laplace has created a technical committee whose work has complemented that carried out within the Anti-Sargassum Steering Committee.
More Arrivals Expected
In late January, the elected members of the Executive Council voted to award a project management contract to Egis Water and Maritime, which is responsible for designing and installing deflecting barriers. This operation is expected to take two to three years. The Collectivité has announced that the first barrier will be installed in Marigot Bay “during the summer of 2026.” Studies of ocean currents in other bays in the northern part of the island will be conducted to determine whether the installation of additional barriers is feasible.
Meanwhile, hotels whose business suffered from the sargassum invasion in June 2025 have taken the initiative to install their own protective systems. This follows consultation meetings with the Collectivité’s environmental department and the Territorial Environmental Agency (ATE).
The latest Sargassum drift forecast bulletin from Météo France, dated Monday, April 13, outlines trends for the next two weeks. Unsurprisingly, it indicates that new arrivals are expected. “The Atlantic Ocean remains heavily laden with Sargassum,” it states. The rafts are mostly small in size, but remain very numerous and prominent, near exposed coasts and offshore in an easterly flow. Arrivals are occurring on both islands (Saint Martin and Saint Barthélemy, ed.), along the coastline repeatedly exposed to the flow, and do not appear to be letting up for the moment. "For the next two weeks, the stranding forecast index for both Saint-Barthélemy and Saint-Martin is 'high,'" reports Météo France.
