Saltburn protest held over dead crustaceans and sea pollution

A protest has been held in Saltburn after crabs, lobsters and other marine life washed up along part of the North East coast.

Thousands of carcasses have been seen in Redcar, Seaton Carew and Saltburn in the past few weeks.

According to Yorkshire Live dead crabs and twitching lobsters and all manner of unexplained crustaceans had been lying on the beach between Marske and Saltburn which has left residents concerned.

Environmental organisations have now joined forces to investigate further and have made the inquiry a ‘top priority’.

So far, experts have ruled out sewage, seismic activity or underwater cables as the cause.

The Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) is completing a series of tests of the samples of water, crab and sediment. It is hoping to identify whether any contaminants or signs of disease can be identified.

Hannah Westoby, senior marine monitoring officer for the Environment Agency, told Yorkshire Live: “We understand how distressing the sight of dead and dying marine life is on our beaches, so this investigation is a top priority for Environment Agency and Cefas laboratories.

“The Environment Agency is investigating whether a pollution incident could have contributed to the deaths of the crustaceans and Cefas is investigating for signs of disease.

“The tests being carried out by our labs are extremely complex and have to be undertaken in steps.

“We’re analysing samples of water, sediment and crab for traces of hundreds of potential contaminants, so it is taking time to work through all of the possibilities.

“We’re continuing to collect further samples while we await the results.

“Our investigations have managed to rule out the likelihood of a number of possible causes, including sewage, seismic activity and underwater cables.

“Results for our water samples have come back as normal for those locations.

“There is always the possibility that this was a natural event, so we are keeping an open mind.”

One commentator on facebook is strongly behind the ‘natural event’ theory. “How many people commenting on this thread actually live by the sea? I’m 67 and lived in Whitby all my life this event happens here when ever we get Easterly storms got nothing to do with all your conspiracy theories.” But others local to the area have pointed out that there wasn’t an Easterly, or a storm, prior to the first occurrences.

According to the BBC, local surfers, swimmers and environmentalists from Make Our Oceans Great Again and Surfers Against Sewage turned out to highlight the issue of sea pollution over the weekend.

The protesters joined demonstrations around the world calling for urgent action on climate change.

“It was incredibly humbling to see how compassionate our community is here in Saltburn to make a difference and stand against what isn’t right,” says Carly Morris from Make Our Oceans Great Again.

Organiser Edith Reeve, from Saltburn Against Sewage, told the BBC: “We’ve had hundreds of crustaceans washing up dead on our beaches.

“Nobody seems to have any idea what is causing it. We’re all crying out for answers. The smell is awful on the beach from all the dead, rotting crabs and lobsters and fish; it’s just awful.

“We’ve also had sewage poured out of our local sewage outflows this week as well because of the rain. We’ve spoken to Northumbrian Water about this previously… their feedback has not been good enough, their systems are not good enough.

“You come down and there’s human faeces all over the beach, towels, tampons and baby wipes and it’s really vile.

“So a lot of the local people here are angry that we’re not being told what is going on with the crabs, we’re angry that the water companies aren’t taking the sewage situation seriously.”