The Cambridge Dictionary defines “in the weeds” as having “so many problems…that you are finding it difficult to deal with something.”1
We might say Hurricane Irma, the Covid pandemic, and GST have put Anguilla “in the weeds” – not to mention, another thicket of civil rights entangled in “Consumer Protection” and gambling our future with a “gaming environment” where only the government wins. Raise your hand if you’re feeling “in the weeds” these days.
From Plantations to Restaurants – to Societal Issues
Another variation, being “deep into the weeds” has been adopted internationally in the restaurant sector to describe workers in crowded venues being overwhelmed by food and beverage orders. Yet another meaning refers to being so preoccupied with complex details as to delay or divert from decisions or solutions.2
Whereas the “Grammarist” dates “in the weeds” to the 1600s with European colonization of the Caribbean and specifically to English plantations, from which people escaped into thick vegetation, instead of weeding the fields.
This source notes that current use also describes, “…the frustration of a problem or societal issue that has become ‘too much’ to an individual or group.”3
And – in case anyone has missed it, there is a massive mat of seaweed meandering our way just weeks before hurricane season!
“In the Weeds” with Seaweed?
In fact, there is growing, global alarm over sargassum. Just last week, a search of “5000 miles of seaweed 2023” pulled up millions of results4 with top stories from PBS, MarketWatch and CNN.
The looming bloom “has doubled every month from November to January” and can be seen on satellite imagery. Spanning the Atlantic, it is “continuing to migrate westward” closer to the Florida Keys, Yucatán Peninsula and the eastern Caribbean.5
Recent Impacts: From Across the Region – and Anguilla
In 2022, seaweed interfered with a St. Croix desalination plant, and it led to daily deployment of some 1,600 dump trucks to minimize impact on tourism along Barbados beaches. Another effort to remove it directly from the water in the Cayman Islands was thwarted by complexities of managing its decomposition and disposal.5
As many have observed, disheartening deposits have also shrouded our shores in recent weeks, including one so severe it led to closure of Vivian Vanterpool Primary School in late February.6
Risks of Seaweed for Seafarers – and Fishing
Although sargassum beds provide “food, refuge, and breeding grounds for … fish, sea turtles, marine birds, crabs, shrimp, and more” – they can be hazardous to vessels attempting to traverse, study or fish in them.
Algae can “clog the intakes and prevent seawater from circulating fast enough to keep [water-cooled] engines from overheating” and shutting down, even in a robust research ship, which required special “strainers”.7 Whereas, sailors have reported sargassum drag cutting momentum from “6 knots to just 1.5 knots at the end of the [algae] field.” In one report, engine use was impossible, and the seaweed required cleaning the yacht “rudder every two or three hours” to maintain speed and maneuverability.8
Our fishing and charter boats face similar challenges, which can compromise the livelihoods of fishermen, as well as those in the hospitality sector depending on their catch, as well as offering charter and pleasure boating services.
Risks to Health of Tourism, Tourists – and Residents
While a record-breaking mass is expected this year, in 2018 a newly elected mayor in Mexico estimated a regional decline in tourism of “as much as 35% due to sargassum seaweed washing up on a 480-kilometer-long stretch of otherwise pristine Caribbean beaches.”9
That same year, “more than 11,000 cases of ‘acute sargassum toxicity’ during an eight-month period” were recorded in Guadeloupe and Martinique.5 Such statistics underscore air quality concerns during our recent school closure – and the experience of anyone walking our beaches a few days after a blanket remains beyond resources for removal.
With respect to residents, in addition to hydrogen sulfide gas, heavy metals have been found in sargassum, especially arsenic. While equipment to clear beaches can reduce workers’ exposure to fetid deposits, large-scale collection is thus limited to safeguarding our beaches – and upends hopes for other uses, such as compost in agriculture. Considering landfill issues already facing Anguilla, risks of toxic metals leaching into the water table also make sargassum collection and disposal in Corito especially problematic.
Irma, Covid, GST – and “In the Weeds” with Seaweed?
From Irma to Covid, catastrophic challenges have impacted our households and health in recent years, now intensified by risks posed by GST: These range from emigration to empty refrigerators and cupboards, inability to afford medications, debilitating stress from unpaid home and car loans, and local business lost to Sint Maarten, to name a few. Not to mention ongoing health consequences and lost income from Covid, and – now, yet another threat to tourism and private sector jobs if ocean currents and random chance cannot keep this year’s sargassum swarm at bay.
A Disastrous Dereliction of Duty
Perhaps the most alarming of 2022 impacts was that “the U.S. Virgin Islands declared a state of emergency and requested assistance from FEMA to handle the masses.”5
This nation was freed from tyranny barely 7 years after Hurricane Donna killed 5 Anguillians, reshaping the landscape – and the building standards thereafter. Yet. One government after another has been enabled with British assent to spend, borrow and financially weaken Anguilla more and more every year, ever since. While Social Security helped protect from personal perils, failure to establish and consistently fund a fiscal and disaster reserve above all other priorities, has put us in harm’s way and at the mercies of banks and the British. After impoverishing the People by squandering billions in taxes, this mismanagement culminated in the suffocating stench of GST as generational ransom forced for rotting Hurricane Irma “grants” – and then having to beg again during Covid while the government kept spending nearly $20 Million per month.
Ever since the borders were opened and revenue goals exceeded with existing taxes, reasoned leaders have had a moral obligation to clean up after decades of this disastrous dereliction of duty. They must start by repealing GST to rescue us all from its remnants of Irma, curb spending, build up emergency reserves to weather the weather, and get us out of the weeds – as well as any seaweed that drifts our way!
Repeal GST. Now.
This article reflects cultural and economic issues raised on July 5, 2021, at the House Select Committee on GST Public Hearing. https://dictionary. cambridge.org/dictionary/english/in-the-weeds; 2https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/into+the+weeds; 3https://grammarist.com/idiom/in-the-weeds/; 4“5,000 miles of seaweed 2023” Google Chrome (20 March 2023); 5https://www.npr.org/2023/03/15/1163385168/ sargassum-seaweed-florida-mexico-beaches; 6”Island harbour Reach Cleaned of Sargssum” (The Anguillian, Vol 25, No 12; 24 Feb 2023); 7https://oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/okeanos/explorations/22voyage-to-the-ridge/features/sargassum/sargassum.html; 8https://www.yachtingworld.com/sailing-across-atlantic/sargassum-weed-increasing-problem-transatlantic-sailors-125971; 9https://mexiconewsdaily.com/news/tourism-down-30-35-due-to-sargassum/.
Illustration based on March 7-13 satellite photo. (https://stpetecatalyst.com/usfsp-researchers-track-seaweed-mass-visible-from-space/amp/)
