FEB 10, 2026

This months Cumbria Life has a gushing “People and Places” article “A Day Out in Whitehaven” with the strap line “Cornwall and Cannes eat your heart out- Discover a popular seaside town on the Cumbrian Coast” Words and Photos by Geneve Bartholomew – Brand.

The article makes much of the Sellafield funded Beacon Museum and Edge water sports centre along with the also Sellafield funded new gaming centre called LEVELS “a new digital and gaming hub located at the Grade 11 listed former Whittles building in the heart of the town.” The gaming hub will no doubt be a recruitment source for the next generation of AI robotics operators at Sellafield. 

The heart of the town is being bought up by Sellafield with a pithy letter in the 4th February Whitehaven News from former councillor Tim Knowles saying “I was recently concerned that Whitehaven had experienced some kind of emergency. The town seemed full of people wandering around in high visibility clothing but with no apparent purpose. I was later told that this is the latest in Sellafield outfitting…..is the Hi Vis -uniform becoming a rather “in your face” badge of relative wealth around town.” The letter goes on to remark about “the number of sheds and fences painted in the famous “BNFL blue” all around West Cumbria.” (takeaways still happen) 

Many £Millions of pounds of taxpayers money are being poured into Whitehaven filtered through the big brother hands of Sellafield. That is not all that is being poured into Whitehaven.

What the “Riviera of the North” article in Cumbria Life fails to mention is the outrageous state of the harbour with water that can no longer be called water in the docks. The ongoing pollution event started in 2022 and has continued ever since with the acid mine pollution from historic mines which includes the sulphur producing Anhydrite Mine at the old Marchon site (now scandalously approved for housing) . The ‘water’ only ran clear for a short time last September when Silt Buster machines were in operation in the rail tunnel which drains to the culvert in Queen’s Dock.

We recently released FOI answers to the authorities and the press. BBC online did cover this albeit not telling the whole story but with much more openness that that previously aired and certainly without the rose tinted specs of the Cumbria Life article. If this ongoing pollution event was happening in Cornwall or Cannes there would be banner headlines worldwide. But here in Whitehaven there are vested interests in keeping schtum about the impacts of deep mining because guess who wants to mine out the biggest void ever on the Lake District coast – yep our generous benefactor Sellafield.

The BBC online article can be read in full here extract below

Harbour’s orange water is a ‘cocktail of nasties’

Image caption, Marianne Birkby, from Radiation Free Lakeland, said Whitehaven Harbour plans needed to change

• Published5 February 2026

Concerns have been raised about chemical levels in water in a harbour that has turned orange.

The water in Whitehaven’s Queens Dock, in Cumbria, has been discoloured since 2022 because of iron ochre draining through a culvert from Bransty railway tunnel.

A FOI request by campaign group Radiation Free Lakeland (RaFL) to Network Rail found iron and manganese levels in the water were significantly above the European quality standard. Campaigner Marianne Birkby said: “It’s a cocktail of nasties.”

The Environment Agency (EA) said it believed the chemicals originated from former mine workings but there would not be a “significant impact” on the environment as they would be diluted.

However, the data has prompted calls for plans to divert the water into the sea to be dropped.

Birkby said the chemicals needed to be mitigated, not dispersed.

Image caption, Water in Whitehaven Harbour has been discoloured for more than three years

Dr Rich Crane, associate professor of sustainable mining at the University of Exeter, said there would likely be an environmental impact.

He said iron and manganese discharge could cause problems including falling oxygen levels, the smothering of habitats and impaired photosynthesis.

“This requires detailed monitoring and re-evaluation,” Crane said.

“Given legacy mine water discharges are typically persistent, a remediation scheme may ultimately be required.”

Remediation would involve treating the mine water, external to improve its quality, such as pumping it with chemical reagents or planting reed beds to filter it.

‘Reviewing findings’

Birkby also said multiple samples were found to have acidic pH values and that the water should therefore be classified as acidic mine drainage – which is recognised as harmful to wildlife.

In response, a spokesperson for the EA said it was reviewing RaFL’s findings and “working with our Whitehaven Harbour Task Force, external partners to find solutions to inherently difficult problems”.

Chair of the taskforce Labour MP Josh MacAlister’s team confirmed the plan was still to divert the water into the sea.

The EA said because all the mines in the area closed before 2000, no-one was legally liable for the pollution or could be prosecuted for allowing it to continue.

Up to 1999, mine operators could abandon a mine without notifying anyone and disregard any responsibility for allowing contaminated water to enter into waterways.

continues at BBC Online here