Dredging returns in the River Tees - despite campaigners' warnings
A new phase of dredging's underway in the River Tees - with all the resulting materials to be disposed of in the sea.
A new phase of dredging's underway in the River Tees - with all the resulting materials to be disposed of in the sea.
That's despite campaigners, and fishing industry groups - who maintain dredging by Teesworks caused the mass crab deaths along the Teesside coast in 2021.
Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen says this will pave the way for thousands of jobs. He maintains the work can go ahead after a report by the Crustacean Mortality Expert Panel concluded it was “exceptionally unlikely” that dredging by Teesworks caused mass crab deaths on the coast in 2021 – though controversy continued as campaigners dismissed the report as “rubbish”.
Mr Houchen said: “We’ve supported those people who say we need to find what caused the die-off, and at the moment the most likely working theory is it could be a foreign pathogen or a disease that caused that. The science is very clear as to what didn’t cause it.
“Although we might not know what caused it, we’ve got a very very strong set of data and science that shows what didn’t cause it. That allows us to get on with the jobs we said we were going to deliver.”
This is a second phase of dredging to take about a million cubic metres of non-contaminated material from the river bed and depositing it about seven nautical miles out at sea. A first dredge of material which was deemed contaminated and needed to be brought ashore and disposed of on land, has finished, leaving material which is deemed suitable to be disposed of at sea.
The work will make way for the new £107m South Bank Quay which will serve facilities including South Korean firm SeAH’s huge £400m turbine factory, which will make monopiles for offshore wind farms and is promising to bring more than 2,000 jobs.
But other politicians are not convinced of the study's results.
A statement from Middlesbrough MP, Andy McDonald - when the latest report into the shellfish deaths was released - said;
“It's extremely disappointing that this report does not provide any definitive answers as to why this ecological disaster happened and deaths continue. It effectively says, ‘we don’t know why it happened’.
"It resolves nothing. It does say that the previously offered government explanation of algal bloom was wrong as many had said it was, but equally discounts the chemical pyridine on the basis that the spread of the disaster is too big for it to have been from such a cause.
"It cannot be left that the cause is simply written off as being unidentified. There has to be a causal factor, or factors, for such a devastating event, but quite simply that cause or causes can't currently be defined. That being so, further investigation is needed. When Covid first appeared, scientists were wonderfully accurate in identifying the strain and vaccination to address it.
"With an ecological disaster such as we have seen here in our region, it is imperative that the experts and scientists continue to investigate so as to take any necessary steps to address the cause and so that our fishers can have some semblance of understanding as to if and when the stocks might return.”
Meanwhile, Stockton North's Alex Cunningham said;
“Today the government have been found out – but it is the people of Teesside who have paid the price. For over fifteen months I and others across Teesside, North Yorkshire and County Durham have been calling for answers on the mass crustacean die-offs that have blighted our environment and have had a detrimental impact on our local fishing industry. I’m pleased that this scientific assessment has shed some light on the matter, and I want to the thank Sir Patrick Vallance and his team for the work they have done on it.
“We now know that the algal bloom theory which the Prime Minister, Ministers, Tory MPs and the Tees Valley Mayor have hidden behind for so long is an unlikely cause for the mass deaths. For months they told us that an algal bloom is the cause and have rubbished anyone who has dared to challenge this theory.
“Just think of the time they could have saved – and anxieties they could have allayed – had they held up their hands, accepted that it was an inconclusive theory, and agreed to carrying out more testing and investigations from the outset. Sadly local Tories seem to think the matter is now closed with this report and are more concerned with protecting the Tees Valley Mayor’s flagship policy.
“As far as I and many others are concerned the matter is very much not closed. This investigation is a good first step to getting to the bottom of this issue. We now need a fully independent and entirely transparent investigation in to the matter with access to all areas for sampling and testing. Only then will get to the bottom of this environmental tragedy of epic proportions.”