Monitoring the marine environment

How local knowledge can help identify pollution sources more rapidly

Many will be aware of the e orts the Association of Sco sh Shellfish Growers (ASSG) has made in the past to ensure marine water quality standards were established and maintained to assist the development opportunities for our sector.

The repeal of the former Shellfish Growing Waters Directive in 2013 and the subsuming of the provisions within the Water Framework Directive risked standards being less targeted to our sector’s needs.

Management of the natural water environment is now viewed holistically in terms of river basin management with catchment areas extending into the marine environment out to 3nm within Scotland.

The Sco sh Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) is responsible for standards being met and it has recently published the second River Basement Management Plan (RBMP) for Scotland identifying actions to be progressed.

In our own context of shellfish harvesting waters requiring to be classified as A’ (allowing direct placement of shellfish on to the market) we obviously have a keen interest in ensuring that all potential sources of pollution in the Sco sh marine environment are adequately addressed.

Shellfish growers have a long history of being the guardians and monitors of the natural marine environment- actions to ban the use of TBT anti-fouling on boats being a classic example.

The Sco sh government has currently designated, through legislation, 84 Shellfish Waters Protected Areas (SWPAs), with Loch Ryan hopefully to be the 85th under the recently approved Solway and Tweed RBMP.

However, 47 of these areas are considered by SEPA to be degraded’. In a Sco sh shellfish context, one of the key issues we are faced with is rural di use pollution from a range of both farming and anthropogenic sources. The second RBMP contains SEPA’s proposals to redress this balance and see all SWPAs maintained at the agreed standard.

While clearly the shellfish industry has su ered through the polluter pays’ principle not being rigorously enforced in the past, there is now a good opportunity for us to support the activities of SEPA in seeking to resolve water quality issues.

Identifying sources of rural di use pollution is obviously a complex matter given the range of potential inputs to any loch system. The system of sanitary surveys used by Food Standards Scotland (FSS) n the Classification of Shellfish Harvesting Waters and identification of water quality sampling points provides a good starting point for SEPA to identify hotspots and potentially the source of the input.

However, local knowledge will be key in gaining a better perspective of likely sources of pollution ranging from outdated or ine cient waste water treatment facilities (including individual domestic sources) to agricultural land use practices and even the incidence of visiting boats which may discharge waste water.

Consequently, the ASSG has welcomed this proposed work plan set out by SEPA under the second RBMP and has asked that all members actively engage with supplying any relevant information that can assist in identifying sources of pollution in their working localities.