Last week, the Isle of Man government licensed aggregate extraction from the marine environment off Maughold Head. The Celtic League highlighted the obvious potential risk given levels of radioactive waste from Sellafield deposited in that area.

However, leaving aside the wisdom of allowing exploratory work with a view to large scale aggregate extraction, in an area as radioactively contaminated as the North East Irish Sea, the general environmental consequences could also be horrendous.

Marine aggregate dredging, involving the removal of sand and gravel, can be likened to a form of undersea strip-mining. The aggregate is removed from the sea-bed to a depth of seven to eight feet over an area of many square kilometres.

Marine life in the area of the extraction site will experiences a severe rate of mortality. In addition, over an even greater area of sea-bed, marine life will be smothered by the fine rejected material returned overboard from the dredger and from the cloud of silt generated by the dredging operation itself.

It is unclear how quickly, if at all, the area stripped will recover. The industry in England and Wales, where this aggregate extraction already accounts for over twenty per cent of the sand and gravel requirements of the construction industry, is driven by commercial interest and environmental considerations are secondary.

If the plans currently mooted for aggregate extraction offshore were proposed for an onshore site in the Isle of Man there would be an understandable outcry. However, the Isle of Man DTI and its new commercial partners seem to be working on the assumption that out of sight means out of mind.

It would be devastating if the Isle of Man realised too late the potentially critical damage which its marine environment could be subject to.

See also Celtic News:

No. 2183 - MANX URGED TO BLOCK AGGREGATE EXTRACTION FROM RADIOACTIVELY CONTAMINATED SEA-BED - April 21 2007

MANX URGED TO BLOCK AGGREGATE EXTRACTION FROM RADIOACTIVELY CONTAMIN"); // --> MANX URGED TO BLOCK AGGREGATE EXTRACTION FROM RADIOACTIVELY CONTAMIN J B Moffatt Director of Information Celtic League

23/04/07

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