The poisoned Tees

Exactly. The point is though, where's the risk assessment? If you dug up the land of an old chemical plant without pausing to consider the potential knock-on effects of contamination and you ended up killing thousands of animals, you'd potentially be facing a jail sentence. Everyone knows how our river was badly polluted in the past 150 years or so, it's hardly a well-kept secret, so who gave the ok to disturb the bed of the Tees on such a scale without pause to consider the environmental effects?
Cast your mind back to the early years of Riverside. Remember the white tents and piles of " soil" by Middlesbrough Dock.( where the offices and restaurants are now)
This was a process to clean out the heavy metals and pollution that had settled in the Dock itself ( not the river channel.)
Whilst the south bank wharf,( between West Byng upriver to Smiths Dock)was never a closed tidal Dock ( unlike middlesbrough dock) it was essentially unused since the mid 1970s, occasionally used as a lay by berth for small coasters. Little or no dredging occurred allowing sediment to lay undisturbed. It is this material that was dumped in the Tees bay designated spoil areas. Why was this not treated the same as middlesbrough dock dredged materials.ie Processed and cleaned rather than dumped at sea in the same manner as everyday " natural" regularly dredged material from the shipping channel.????
 
This algae bloom must be different to all the other Algae Blooms that happens regularly as was mentioned by one of the fishermen affected...this started when they started dumping dredged material from the Tees...the fishermen know what's happening!!!
the fisherman always know whats happening.
 
Years ago I was watching a big unit arriving on the Tees & talking with two people, turned out one was a prof who'd completed a study on the Tees & said to my comment "surprised they've not dredged it deeper" that it couldn't because it would disturb the pollutants in the sediment that have been, effectively, buried by the decades of silt.

They just grabbing at ££ and don't care about environment..
 
Maybe they should dump it in a location well away from Teesmouth where the shellfish can be monitored before/after and settle the argument. I won't say where that location should be.

This reminds me of when they built the Redcar 'complex' in the 70s. They dredged the river in order to take big ore carriers. Eventually there was a storm one night and Redcar beach disappeared! Nature restores the balance.
 
They didn't research it enough prior to dredging taking place on a river heavily contaminated after decades of chemical dumping.

We know the river is contaminated, why dump it in the sea?
Well maybe I dontr have all the facts but from that documentary they said they were dredging an area they always dredge and have for years and that is just sand build up. There is a seperate issue in that they want to dredge for the new port layout but that has not started yet so cant be the cause of the current issues. Personally I think it is likely that some chemical has caused this but we need more evidence
 
Well maybe I dontr have all the facts but from that documentary they said they were dredging an area they always dredge and have for years and that is just sand build up. There is a seperate issue in that they want to dredge for the new port layout but that has not started yet so cant be the cause of the current issues. Personally I think it is likely that some chemical has caused this but we need more evidence
We do indeed.
 
Surely if the river is silting up it needs to be dredged - freeport or no freeport.

Blaming the Freeport (special economic zone) for the pollution seems to me a way to bash the Freeport idea.

The issue to me seems to be how to dredge without releasing nasty dormant materials into the river and sea.

The first thing is to have 100% clear evidence the crabs etc have died as a conseqenece of certain chemicals.

Is step 1 completed yet?

Next step is to treat the offending chemicals. I can see some poster are recommending treating the chemicals on the land, which sound sensible. But I expect needs more time and money.

Leaving the offending chemicals dormant is not actually getting rid of the problem. just leaving the problem for the future.
 
Surely if the river is silting up it needs to be dredged - freeport or no freeport.

Blaming the Freeport (special economic zone) for the pollution seems to me a way to bash the Freeport idea.

The issue to me seems to be how to dredge without releasing nasty dormant materials into the river and sea.

The first thing is to have 100% clear evidence the crabs etc have died as a conseqenece of certain chemicals.

Is step 1 completed yet?

Next step is to treat the offending chemicals. I can see some poster are recommending treating the chemicals on the land, which sound sensible. But I expect needs more time and money.

Leaving the offending chemicals dormant is not actually getting rid of the problem. just leaving the problem for the future.
The scientists are calling for proper tests and emphasising they want jobs and development but they want to make absolutely certain what is causing the poisoning and where the source is. The deeper levels being dredged for the freeport are not the same stratigraphy as the normal river dredging.
We all want jobs but we don't want to poison the sea and the people of Teesside.
This is all about people's health and marine life and wellbeing. Surely there can be no shortcuts when lives are at stake.
 
FMTTM - Sounds like Step 1 is not fully complete - then the tests on the dead crabs need to done urgently with organisation(s) that are trusted by all. A key issue will be how long do the tests take? and will they give a definite answer?

All - In a risk assessment the hazards needs to be specifically identified and controls put in place listed. At present the hazards appear to be unknown - listing hundreds of potential pollutants from the last 100 years of the Iron and Steel and Chemical industries on the Tees is clearly not specific enough. Without step 1 completed a risk assessment can't be completed.
 
Surely if the river is silting up it needs to be dredged - freeport or no freeport.

Blaming the Freeport (special economic zone) for the pollution seems to me a way to bash the Freeport idea.

The issue to me seems to be how to dredge without releasing nasty dormant materials into the river and sea.

The first thing is to have 100% clear evidence the crabs etc have died as a conseqenece of certain chemicals.

Is step 1 completed yet?

Next step is to treat the offending chemicals. I can see some poster are recommending treating the chemicals on the land, which sound sensible. But I expect needs more time and money.

Leaving the offending chemicals dormant is not actually getting rid of the problem. just leaving the problem for the future.
That's all anyone is asking for, the job to be done right, not rushed through on lies and dodgy practice.
 
Surely if the river is silting up it needs to be dredged - freeport or no freeport.

Blaming the Freeport (special economic zone) for the pollution seems to me a way to bash the Freeport idea.

The issue to me seems to be how to dredge without releasing nasty dormant materials into the river and sea.

The first thing is to have 100% clear evidence the crabs etc have died as a conseqenece of certain chemicals.

Is step 1 completed yet?

Next step is to treat the offending chemicals. I can see some poster are recommending treating the chemicals on the land, which sound sensible. But I expect needs more time and money.

Leaving the offending chemicals dormant is not actually getting rid of the problem. just leaving the problem for the future.
You're putting the cart before the horse - step 1 should be step 2. Dredging should be halted until it can be shown to be safe to resume.
 
Ive just heard on the NE news that the damage to the sea life happened last year, which was before the dredging started, so im confused about the connection?
 
Whatever happens, there is surely enough evidence to pause any further dredging or simply insist that it is removed to land for processing, as somebody else had suggested had been the method in the past with dock dredging.
 
I would be astonished if this was anything other than decades of heavy industry pollution from the various iron and steel, shipbuilding and chemical industries along the tees over the years.

Its probably laid dormant for 40+ years, and now its being re-released back into the eco-system due to the disturbance caused by dredging.

The dredging itself isnt causing the pollution, its just disturbing and uncovering the existing nasties that lie beneath the surface.
The unfortunate thing is we’ve known that the mouth of the river Tees has been contaminated for decades, much like the former sites of BS, ICI etc the list is as long as the channel tunnel.

The government should be picking up the bill for the environmental catastrophe which is all things River Tees and the former sites of BS and ICI. The clean up could take forever.

I think the people of Teesside have been compromised by the damage inflicted by the process related businesses which have served Teesside for so many years. Granted they gave us job security in the 1960s through 2000 but the contaminated zones of Teesside will forever be no go areas for residential areas.

The other point here is how many people died of cancer related illnesses due in part to these environmental issues? Granted it hasn’t been as bad as Bopal (maybe) but the mess left by the Government and private businesses has somehow been swept where no one can find it.
 
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The unfortunate thing is we’ve known that the mouth of the river Tees has been contaminated for decades, much like the former sites of BS, ICI etc the list is as long as the channel tunnel.

Firstly, the government should be picking up the bill for the environmental catastrophe which is all things River Tees and the former sites of BS and ICI. The clean up could take forever.
The sins of the fathers are visited on the sons.
 
I seem to remember reading that they are taking out an extra 13 m in the river and 9 m to get into the dock itself.

All these stories about not starting are inaccurate.

The algae are around most of the time this is a fabrication.

The lads at Paddy Hole said they been dredging a new bit immediately before the deaths started.

The dump about 4 miles out just sufficient to allow it to flow down the coast

Pyridene is a definite nasty. It was used in the Steel industry. I gather it also was from the coke ovens and there were enough of them about. Residues were, like Slag, just dumped on any spare land that was available

It seems pretty clear to me that it is steel production residue which has had an unpredicted effect when dumped out at sea.

The Environment Agency have tried to sweep it under the carpet. You have to question the Ports authority role in the procedure. It is so serious that no one wants to take the blame as it could be very expensive that's the real problem and the reason you cannot get a straight answer
 
Maybe they should dump it in a location well away from Teesmouth where the shellfish can be monitored before/after and settle the argument. I won't say where that location should be.

This reminds me of when they built the Redcar 'complex' in the 70s. They dredged the river in order to take big ore carriers. Eventually there was a storm one night and Redcar beach disappeared! Nature restores the balance.
If the river was heavily dredged in the 1970s - what ever is causing the problem must have settled in the sediment of the river since the 1970s?
 
You're putting the cart before the horse - step 1 should be step 2. Dredging should be halted until it can be shown to be safe to resume.
Jack - I should have said to stop dredging while testing of dead crabs takes place.

There has already been a multi-university investigation paid for by the fisherman - maybe it needs a second investigation to verify their findings that the said pyridene was causing the deaths.

If pyridene is the problem it needs to be dealt with in the River Tees where the dredging is taking place?

If crabs are dying 35 miles south and 20 miles of Teesmouth - I would guess the pyridene has been moved or spread well into the North Sea.
 
It does seem like the dredging has unearthed some nasty stuff, but I dont think there is enough evidence to prove either way, so maybe all activity should stop until enough data is gathered to know definitively what is the cause.

Pyridine is completely non-toxic to marine life once the concentration is less than 0.03mg/l. It is 36 km from the mouth of the Tees to Whitby, (which is the extent of the reported kills). You need to be at least 750m out to reach the main crab beds and the average water depth over that distance is probably 10m.

That is a lot of water volume, and a discharge of about 50 tonnes of pyridine will still only be 0.03mg/l, it's not going to travel as a concentrated plume because mixing is pretty good along that coast due to the tides and currents.

You'd have to discharge huge amounts more to give the crab kills witnessed. It's possible but I'm still sceptical (or at least to totally convinced). A localised kill around the mouth of the Tees and I'd blame dredging, but not one extending at least 36km.

Maybe there is something else being uncovered? or something else going on?
 
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