Sargassum is starting to pile up in South Florida. Here’s what to know
.JPG "Beachgoers navigate crossing a patch of seaweed along South Beach on Thursday, May 7, 2026. This year is predicted to be another record-setting sargassum year, with potentially more blooms reaching shore than last year. The problem is only expected to get worse, with blooms growing larger and arriving earlier. Miami-Dade spends nearly $4 million to rake sargassum off its beaches and take it to the landfill.")
Miami-Dade is bracing for another potentially record-breaking sargassum season, with the smelly brown seaweed already piling up on local beaches. The cleanup costs taxpayers nearly $4 million a year, and economists say lost tourism could push total losses into the billions.
FULL STORY: Miami-Dade’s sargassum problem isn’t going away — and neither are the costs
Here are key takeaways:
- Satellites spotted more sargassum blooms this January than in any on record, according to Chuanmin Hu of the University of South Florida. Researchers point to wind, fertilizer runoff and warmer water temperatures being fueled by climate change as likely drivers.
- Economic impact: Woods Hole researcher Di Jin estimates Florida loses about $2.7 billion in tourism and fishing to sargassum, with trickle-down effects pushing the total closer to $5 billion — and worst-case estimates near $10 billion.
- Tourists are already changing plans. In a Facebook group with more than 17,000 members, travelers debate canceling trips, and some say they’re swapping Miami Beach vacations for Las Vegas or New York.
- Cleanup challenges: Stopping sargassum offshore isn’t practical because the Gulf Stream is too strong, and federal rules limit ocean removal since the seaweed shelters small fish. For now, tractors rake it from the sand and haul it to landfills, where it produces methane as it decays.
- Miami-Dade is testing long-term fixes for processing the sargassum pile up. Four startups — Algas Organics, X Net, Carbon Wave and Chemergy — are piloting ways to turn sargassum into useful products like fertilizer or building materials.
- The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has rolled out a color-coded forecasting tool that tracks where sargassum blooms are along Florida and Gulf Coast shorelines, using red for high risk, orange for medium, yellow for warning and blue for low risk.
- The forecasting model is not yet precise enough to predict exactly which beaches will be hit.
This report was produced with the assistance of a proprietary tool powered by artificial intelligence and using our own originally reported, written and published content. It was reviewed and edited by our journalists.
This story was originally published May 18, 2026 at 4:30 AM.