Earlier this year with the help of generous donations we employed dowsers to look at the routes of the acid mine pollution which has been pouring into Whitehaven harbour for almost two years.
The dowsers plotted complex charts indicating the routes the pollution may be taking and also came up with with some surprising things such as that there were indications of radioactivity in the silt coming into the harbour via the culvert joining with radioactively contaminated silt already present as a result of decades of Sellafield discharges and the chemical Marchon plant.
We collected a silt sample which was tested by a world class laboratory who found Americium 241 – a decay product of plutionum this should not be in the harbour at any level let alone 37 bq/kg in less than a teaspoon of silt. The routes and scale of the pollution (including a large underground lake) along with the results of the silt test have been sent to the authorities who have studiously ignored it or in the case of Sellafield brushed it aside saying ‘yes we know AM241 is in the harbour.’
The authorities tasked with finding the cause and solution to the pollution have incredibly not carried out tests on the silt in the culvert. Particulate can be seen hanging over the culvert and if we can we would like to have this tested along with further testing within the harbour including in the vicinity of the newly built and soon to opened Sellafield funded water sports centre . Yes thats right Sellafield who cannot find and stop their own radioactive leaks is one of the authorities tasked with finding a ‘solution’ to the Whitehaven pollution. The greenwashing of this cocktail of pollution includes building a multi £Million water sports centre in the harbour.
This is our latest campaign to raise funds for testing and to raise awareness on the scale of this pollution which is more than the sum of its acid mine pollution and atomic wastes – please share in and if you can donate that would help us to take the campaign forward.
Whitehaven Harbour is beautiful. Known as ‘The Gateway to the Lakes” the new MP Josh MacAlister is even gushing about Whitehaven being the new Riviera of the North and is “working” to facilitate a new ferry service in and out of the harbour.
There is a BIG blind spot in all this fizzing gush and that is the ongoing pollution gushing into the harbour at 70 l/s. The ongoing pollution which should have banner headlines in national press barely even gets a mention in the local press. There is no national speculation about how this could have happened after the honey comb of mines dating from medieval times have (relatively) behaved themselves for so long after abandonment.
Ironically the orange water started gushing out of the culvert in the harbour around the same time government approved the (later to be ditched) West Cumbria Coking Coal Mine in December 2022. It has only taken two years (I know!!) for the authorities to admit that there is a danger to marine life from the toxic metal laden acid mine water. Of the radioactive waste in the harbour silt from Sellafield there is no mention at all in the press.
With your help we would like to take samples and test areas of the harbour which the authorities have so far failed to sample and test. Without knowledge of what is happening and where, there can be no long term or even short term solution.
We would use a world class laboratory and share all our findings with you and with the authorities.
Even now the authorities are greenwashing the danger from this ongoing pollution event with contradictory statements such as “the harbour floor – although not poisonous to humans – should not be paddled in or ingested.” Sellafield’s expertise has ‘been called on’ to ‘solve’ the pollution pouring into Whitehaven harbour despite failing to find and stop the ongoing leaks to groundwater in their own radioactive waste containment buildings.
While the pollution pouring into Whitehaven has been happening, Sellafield has provided, with great fanfare almost £100,000 to purchase several battery powered seabins for the Whitehaven Youth Project. These seabins are designed to pick up surface rubbish. This project has seen hundreds of local children messing about with silted up wastes in the seabins in ‘environmental projects’.
Some time ago I wrote to Sellafield and the Whitehaven Youth Project on behalf of Radiation Free Lakeland urging the nuclear industry to ditch the Seabin project and stop exposing children to the contaminated harbour water and silt Sellafield wrote back putting the responsibility for children’s welfare onto the Whitehaven Harbour Youth Project. The nuclear industry have a vested interest in greenwashing radioactive wastes which can only have come from Sellafield.
My letter:
“Dear Whitehaven Harbour Youth Project,
The seabins are an excellent idea to clean up plastic pollution but the pollution in Whitehaven Harbour is far more insidious. We asked Sellafield if they had tested the silt from the seabins in respect of health and safety of children and young people working with the bins. Sellafield replied that this was Whitehaven Youth Project’s responsibility. We do not agree especially as our own investigations into the pollution in Whitehaven Harbour includes not only dangerous acid mine pollution but also highly radioactive elements such as Americium 241 in the silt which can only have come from Sellafield.
We urge you not to expose children to this pollution which if inhaled or ingested is dangerous to health. Here is our own report into the pollution which is ongoing. We have asked the authorities to routinely test the water and silt but the testing has been minimal – for example the silt on the lip of the culvert in Queen’s Dock should be tested – but has not.” Report can be found here https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-whitehaven-harbour/updates/211265#start
It is very scary that the full impacts are not being properly reported on apart from letters to the press.
In The Cambrian News Elly Foster writes: “The Sellafield nuclear disposal facility mainly deals with nuclear waste decommissioning and storage. Campaigners from Radiation Free Lakeland commissioned a report on pollution in Whitehaven harbour. Funded by private donations, here are some of the findings: We knew that there would be uranium and radon in the silt in the harbour as a result of the acid mine pollution gushing into the harbour from old and deep mines but in the silt in Whitehaven harbour is a highly radioactive element called Americium 241 – this can only have come from the nuclear industry- how it got there- via the Irish Sea from Sellafield discharges or via the decades of nuclear waste transports – or both – remains to be tested”. Sellafield have a vested interest in pretending all is well – to this end they have even funded a watersports centre on the harbour called the Edge. This should be repurposed as a centre for investigations into ongoing pollution incidents.”
With your help we would like to continue to lobby the authorities to test areas of the harbour and the culvert which they have so far failed to sample and test.
Without knowledge of what is happening and where with regards to the pollution there can be no long term or even short term solution.
With your help we will carry out our own tests using a world class laboratory.
Click here to see Crowdfunding page WHITEHAVEN HARBOUR CAMPAIGN
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