from Plymouth Herald
More than 200 people defied driving rain to protest against the continued dumping of dredged material from the River Tamar in Whitsand Bay.
The protesters gathered at Rame Head on Saturday.
They say thousands of tonnes of “toxic silt” have been dumped off Rame Head, polluting Whitsand Bay, which is part of a recently established marine conservation zone.
Dredged material from Devonport Royal Naval Base and surrounding areas, including Plymouth marinas, has been dumped at the site for years.
A fresh application for another two-year license to keep dredging and dumping was lodged last month.
A decision is due to be made in early 2014 but opponents have identified an alternative site they say is safer, a mile offshore.
Organiser Deb Hoskin said that people who had lived in the area since the 1960s and regularly used Whitsand Bay for swimming, fishing and diving had witnessed the “devastation” of the area over the past ten years.
“We just want it to stop,” she said. “It needs to be dumped somewhere safer.”
Edwina Hannaford, West Looe councillor on Cornwall Council, said she was concerned that the impact on the new Looe Bay Marine Conservation Area had not been understood.
Phil Hutty the Liberal Democrat prospective parliamentary candidate for South East Cornwall, said: “The inertia is created by people saying, ‘It’s not my problem’, when it’s everyone’s problem. Move the dumping offshore and leave this lovely bay alone.”
Local campaigner Claire Wallerstein said: “Around 6million tonnes have been dumped in this small bay, even though the Environment Agency said in 2005 that it had reached capacity. It will be a travesty if the new license is granted.”
A 2011 study commissioned by the Marine Management Organisation said the impacts of dumping were “evident … but are low level and not widespread”.
“Despite perceptions of environmental problems, moving the site further offshore would have adverse environmental and economic repercussions”, the report said.
The last dredging at Devonport Dockyard in the Tamar took place on March 22 last year and the new application predicts that 367,000 tonnes will be extracted over the two-year license period.
The application, by Boskalis Westminster Ltd, also admits the proposed disposal site falls within a conservation area.
The Marine Management Organisation said last month it expects to make a decision by early 2014, following a 28-day public consultation period which ended last month.
South East Cornwall MP Sheryll Murray and some of her constituents met George Eustice, a Minister at Defra, the Department for Food and Rural Affairs, to discuss the issue of Rame dumping.
The cross-party delegation, organised by Mrs Murray, included Independent, Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors as well as residents. After the meeting Mrs Murray said: “The dredging is vital to maintain the dockyards at Plymouth upon which so many constituents’ jobs rely. What I want to see is a different site used for the dumping. I would like to thank the local people who got together to identify a disused sewage site, which is a little further out, in much deeper water. This would let this material disperse more naturally.”
