Since starting the Gallivant 10 years ago, I have watched Camber sands rise up the
nation’s consciousness to become one of East Sussex/Kent’s most visited locations.
With mile upon mile of golden sands it’s not difficult to see why it’s regularly voted
one of the most beautiful beaches in the UK and has drawn millions of visitors to the
area with money to spend.
Hidden by the towering dunes, I sometimes feel it’s an asset not fully appreciated
and why we have been organising a beach clean on the first Tuesday of every month
for as long as I can remember. We consistently get 25 – 30 community minded
locals coming along and feel the refreshments we hand out at the end is the least we
can do.
It was with horror therefore when I took a call shortly after our November clean telling
me that they had spotted lots of little black beads on the foreshore. My mind raced,
what could they be, where had they come from, what were they made of, is this just
the start and are there more to come?
So where are we today? We now know 10 tonnes of these little black beads were
“accidentally” released on Wednesday 29 October at a Southern Water wastewater
outfall pipe a couple of miles offshore from Eastbourne. We don’t know how many
beads this might mean but we are certainly talking hundreds of millions if not billions
being released.
A source at the Environment Agency was quoted in the Guardian calling it “one of
England’s worst plastic pollution events” and Richard Oakes, our local Environment
Agency officer told a meeting that he expected the incident would be upgraded to a
category 1 pollution event, the most serious kind.
We organised another beach clean a week later. This time we were not alone,
alongside us were about 30 contractors in high vis jackets, some on their hands and
knees, using kitchen sieves to collect the beads. It felt like I was walking onto some
sort of TV parody sketch show. 50 metres away a crow was picking things out of the
seaweed – had it discovered the beads I wondered. Was this really where we’d got
to – a few contractors sieving sand with a kitchen sieve?
What does the future hold? Well, it’s pretty clear to me what Southern’s PR strategy
is – hope this problem gets lightly brushed away, literally. But what are the longer
term consequences? What’s the impact going to be for our nationally important
nature reserves? And what about our fishing fleets at Hastings, Rye and
Dungeness? Have these pellets become some sinister new part of the food chain?
So I ask, are these beads washed up on our beach just the beginning and is the
worst yet to come? And what is Southern Water’s strategy then? More contractors
in high vis jackets picking up dead birds and fish on the foreshore? What we need is some re-assurance that this can never happen again and what plans are in place if
the worst is still yet to come.
Rye News welcomes all opinion pieces on issues that affect life in Rye and the surrounding villages. If you would like to add yours to our Opinions section email info@ryenews.org.uk.
Image Credits: John Bradford .