Environment committee hears from Teesside fishing industry workers on mass shellfish deaths
A hearing of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee heard from experts and representatives from the fishing industry yesterday
The North East fishing industry is terrified of dredging work going ahead in the River Tees next year - a panel of MPs has heard.
A hearing of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs select committee yesterday saw North Yorkshire fishing workers speak out about the recent waves of dead shellfish washing up on Teesside beaches.
The Government is blaming the deaths on algae.
Joe Redfern, secretary of Whitby Commercial Fishing Association said he thinks further dredging could bring an end to the North East fishing industry.
Teesworks did not start dredging until September this year and it is currently depositing the sediment on land, it won’t be disposing at sea until next year.
PD Ports carries out maintenance dredging all year round.
A mass die-off saw huge numbers of crustaceans wash up on Teesside’s shores last October.
Defra has ruled it is due to an algal bloom, whereas some academics believe it was caused by dredging that’s unearthed pyridine.
The panel also heard from agencies and academics with opposing views on the cause of the mass deaths.
Mr Redfern said: “We are terrified that if this next round of dredging goes ahead it’s going to be the end of the North East fishing industry.” He believes it is “undoubtable” that dredging and pyridine have played a part in the die-offs.
David McCandless, chief officer at the North Eastern Inshore and Fishing Conservation Authority (NIFCA) said that lobster catch levels were “reasonably encouraging” but that crabs were at least 50% down and in some areas they could be 90% down.
In response, Hartlepool fisherman Stan Rennie said: “I find it so frustrating that NIFCA’s report is so misleading.”
He said half of the Hartlepool fishing fleet were out of business and the industry had subsequently been hit by job losses.
Mr Rennie said he believes an “extinction episode” is happening in the North Sea and stated if it was happening in any other region the government would be throwing the kitchen sink at the issue.
The fisherman added that the lobster catch was down 50%, undersized lobsters and pregnant lobsters were down 75% and velvet crabs and brown crabs were down 100%. Mr Redfern said velvet and shore crabs were “completely decimated”.
Mr Rennie said he had a 58% reduction in income and branded the situation “absolutely devastating”. He relies on summer season work from July to September – in 2021 he made £8,761 but this year it was just £3,753.
His working days have also doubled in length and he is now traveling a further 90 minutes per day to get out of the die-off zone to fish as he doesn’t want to sell something he wouldn’t eat as he doesn’t believe it’s safe.
The Hartlepool fisherman said people didn’t want to ask for handouts.
He added: “They’re proud people so not once has it been mentioned.”
However, Mr Redfern did say that the government needed to introduce support for the troubled coastal communities.
The committee also heard from Dr Gary Caldwell who was behind a study commissioned by the North East Fishing Collective into the mass die-offs.
It concluded that “pyridine in seawater is highly toxic to crabs even at low levels, showing indications of attacking the nervous system as evidenced by the twitching and convulsing behaviours.”
He has exposed crabs to pyridine as part of his studies and was taken aback as he was not expecting it to be as toxic so quickly.
He said that crabs were dying in a matter of hours and were twitching so badly that they were doing “somersaults in the tank”.
The crabs would then go into a state of paralysis, that would last for 20 to 30 minutes before dying within six hours.
He suggested that low amounts of pyridine can cause such a response in crabs because they have receptors on their legs – comparing it to snake venom reaching humans through fog.
Earlier in the session PD Ports’ director Jerry Hopkinson said another dredging machine had been brought in after there was slippage. This meant that the company did 150,000 tonnes of dredging in ten days when it would usually take 20 to 30 days.
Dr Caldwell questions whether the slippage could have disrupted a “pyridine reservoir”.
However, Mr Hopkinson said: “It’s coincidental that the dredger arrived when these crustacean mortalities occurred. Frankly I think we are looking in the wrong direction.
He went on to add: “This type of relatively intense dredging was not a one-off occurrence, we will have done this many times over the last 40-50 years.”
Dr Caldwell said the academics were not the “enemy of development” but called for a temporary moratorium on capital dredging being carried out by Teesworks on the South Bank. He said there needs to be an independently verified pyridine map.
He added: “For you to understand the nature of the risk of pyridine…you need to know what’s in the sediment.”
Rachel Hartnell, science director, the Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (CEFAS) said there was good evidence to suggest algal bloom caused the mass die-off. She added satellite data and some testing in the area found a bloom was almost certainly present and persisted until a week into the mass die off until the water cooled. Before adding that this can cause oxygen depletion leading to crustacean deaths.
A spokesperson for South Tees Development Corporation said: “We continue to follow all legal standards and requirements as is required, including the issued licence and guidance from DEFRA and MMO, who continue to rule out dredging as a likely cause. The Tees Valley Mayor continues to push Government for financial support those fishermen whose livelihoods have been affected by this issue.”