- Green Eye, Freeport chemical bothers Archived Message
Posted by Keith-264
on November 15, 2022, 1:47 pm
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https://www.private-eye.co.uk/in-the-back Issue 1585 rishi-freeport.jpg WHEN one of the scientists behind studies implicating dredging near the mouth of the river Tees as a cause of dying marine life (see last Eye) appeared before the Commons environment committee last week, he revealed that official concerns over the role of the industrial toxin pyridine are stronger than the government would have everyone believe. Dredging of the river channel, with the waste dumped at sites off the coast, is due to be followed by deeper dredging to create a new dock, the South Bank quay. This 1km dock is central to the development of the 4,500 acre Teesworks area as the government's flagship freeport zone, and has been described by its developers as "unlocking the wider Teesworks site". Political headache Yet, as Dr Gary Caldwell of Newcastle University told MPs, an official from the Association of Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authorities had told him the government's environment agency wanted his data so they could "work together to stop the dredging of the South Bank". An email from an IFCA official said the government advisers "agree that if the situation with the dredging is as urgent as we think it is, then we need to act now and work with Defra and [its agency the Marine Management Organisation] to stop it". To date, the government has insisted that the repeated die-offs, devastating the local fishing industry, were due to natural algal blooms. Anything blocking development of the South Bank quay, funded by a £107m loan from the UK Infrastructure Bank, could prove a political headache. A year ago, then-chancellor Rishi Sunak hailed the funding as "a vote of confidence in the Tees Valley economy and our new freeports that will help turbocharge Britain's post-Brexit growth". Contaminated sand Any loss of confidence would not bode well for a wider project that has been placed largely in the hands of local businessmen (Eyes passim). The fate of Sunak and regional mayor Ben Houchen's pet project rests on their attracting enough investors and raising enough funding in an already difficult climate to regenerate the Teesworks site. A spokesman for the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs told the Eye that the Environment Agency had not called for dredging to stop, although it did indeed wish to see all relevant evidence on pyridine. Time for new environment secretary Thérèse Coffey to pull the government's head out of the contaminated sand and confront the toxic issue. |
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