First Death from Toxic Seaweed?

BBC reports that French investigators are examining whether a driver who died after carrying three truckloads of sea lettuce (Ulva Lactuca) has become the first victim of a toxic seaweed that is clogging parts of the Brittany coast. Sea lettuce is harmless in the sea, but as it decomposes on the beach it releases hydrogen sulphide. Researchers from France's National Institute for Environmental Technology and Hazards (Ineris) who visited the same beach found the deadly gas at such high concentrations that it could be "deadly in few minutes".

"When you walk into the crust of such accumulation, you make a hole in a reservoir of hydrogen sulphide, and this gas is very toxic," said Alain Menesguen. Environmentalists say decades of misuse of Brittany's agricultural land is to blame for the explosion of algae, due to the high levels of nitrates used in fertilizers and excreted by the region's high concentration of livestock.

The 48-year-old driver who had been part of the annual operation to remove 2,000 tons of rotting sea lettuce from the beaches at Binic had been working without a mask or gloves and died at the wheel of his vehicle when it crashed into a wall. His death was originally recorded as a heart attack but prosecutors now want to know if it was linked to the seaweed. "'We want to know if in future we should take precautions to safeguard workers who collect or transport seaweed," says Christian Urvoy, the mayor of Binic.

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Photo: Seaweed Girl by ianm79 Flickr Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic