Peter R Race and Paul Brown on the contamination of the Tees and the North Sea and the dead shellfish littering beaches in the area
I welcome George Monbiot’s highlighting of the sorry saga affecting our precious North Sea and the livelihoods of hundreds of fishermen (The dead shellfish littering our beaches tell you a lot about safety and secrecy in Britain, 6 June). I was going to list all the creatures that are dying or dead, but it is easier to say that everything is suffering. The seabed is barren, and gannets are now being affected.
In the 1970s, I was tasked with organising boats as platforms for Imperial Chemical Industries scientists to investigate the state of the Tees. Careful efforts at cleaning up industry led to an improvement in the water quality, allowing salmon to return to the river. But the mud was an entirely different story. I recall the most senior scientist saying emphatically: “This mud must never be disturbed.”
