MANCHESTER Gray Beach might be more appropriately named Red Beach after the ruddy-colored invasive seaweed that has carpeted the sand for the last several days.

Though residents are unhappy with the excessive fine red seaweed brought ashore by a recent storm, the Public Works and the Parks and Recreation departments aren't currently planning any extra cleaning.

Public Works Director Carol Murray said she is also seeing the red seaweed coming ashore at Singing Beach, White Beach and to some extent Black Beach.

"It's nasty stuff. It's slippery. It doesn't dry out like regular seaweed does it stays almost like Jello," she said. The seaweed likely came from Japan in the bowels of a ship and has spread rapidly along the New England coast during the last four or five years.

The town cleans the beaches once every two weeks, raking up seaweed and sending it to a compost site on School Street. But the bi-weekly schedule may or may not be enough for the latest plague of red seaweed.

"The jury is still out because of the way offshore storms have been. Red seaweed comes back as soon as we rake it,"Murray said."Cleaning it more frequently won't help because it literally is back the next tide."

Much of Gray Beach, also known as Magnolia Beach, is privately owned by the Manchester Bath and Tennis Club, which usually staffs around four employees in the summer to clean the shore daily.

Manager Kim Allen has worked at the club for six years. "I've never seen it this bad, there's way more than usual," she said. "And it smells."

Despite the increasing seaweed, weekly beach water testing thus far has been normal, according to the sampling results from the Massachusetts State Beaches Program. Though it isn't likely that many residents will want to swim in that amount of algae. "It makes the beach un-useable for swimming, sitting and walking," nearby resident Kathleen Kiley said.

Kiley and her husband sold their home of 18 years in Manchester to downsize in a condo in Magnolia just over a year ago. As a longtime resident, she says the scourge of seaweed has never been so extensive. "It smells like rotting eggs or rotting garbage. It's a sulfur smell, it's very foul," Kiley said.

According to Kiley, raking the seaweed and putting it back into the water actually worsens the problem, a practice she has witnessed. "Breaking the seaweed up makes it multiply faster," she said.

This invasion began happening about four years ago, according to Murray, and the Public Works Department tried different ways to get rid of it before it eventually stopped appearing. "I think it's a cyclical thing and because a lot of storms have been off the coast, it stirs up the ocean and gets carried in on the tides," Murray said.

Public Works will keep an eye on the seaweed but at the moment plans to keep business as usual. "If it means we need to go to every week cleaning we'll have to try to pursue with selectmen an opportunity to get money from another account," Murray said. "The thing we keep scratching our heads with is, if it's going to come back next tide, and if it's advantageous to do it every week when you could do it every day and it would still be there?"

Parks and Recreation Director Cheryl Marshall echoed Murray. "Doing more doesnt help and doing less doesnt help. We're going to keep doing what we do," she said.

Gloucester Public Works Director Michael Hale often receives calls about the Manchester beach, but the city doesn't own any of the shore and therefore can't help with the seaweed.

"The town line runs through the center of the concrete landing that runs down off of Shore Road. There is no beach in Gloucester, it's all in Manchester," he said.

Though perhaps unrealistic for Manchester's budget, Gloucester cleans its main beaches on a daily basis to get rid of unwanted seaweed.

Mary Markos may be contacted at 978-675-2708 or mmarkos@gloucestertimes.com

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Stinky red seaweed plagues beaches | Local News ... - Gloucester Daily Times