If there is not enough light for the plants that live in corals to produce energy, the coral may die This happens first of all close to the river mouth. In Soufri re few corals grow close to Hummingbird, or Bat Cave and even the corals at Rachette Point suffer from the mud that runs out of the Soufri re River when there is heavy rainfall. Especially in the rain season, you can easily see the mud running into the Soufri re Bay covering the corals underneath. As I said before, not only mud is running from the rivers into the ocean, but also nutrients. Nutrients come from fertilisers that are used on land to help the plants grow faster and bigger.
Nutrients also come from sewage and leftover food that is put into the river.
Corals grow slowly, and if there are a lot of nutrients in water, algae grow over corals and shade them. The part of the coral lying under the algae dies due to lack of light. After Hurricane Lenny, a lot of corals were broken, destroyed and, consequently, the coral communities weakened. Algae took advantage of this and grew over a lot of corals. There is now a lot of algal growth at Malgretoute, Petit Piton, Jalousie and Gros Piton.