Ocean Management, 5 (1979) 263--278

Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam -- Printed in The Netherlands

M a r i n e Pollution -- Facts and Fiction,

t h e Situation in Britain

Herbert A. Cole

ABSTRACT
The widely-held impression that serious biological damage has been done to the marine
environment and its resources by pollutants is not soundly based. There is no evidence
that any offshore stock of fish or shellfish has suffered a reduction in annual recruitment
to the exploitable stock as the result of pollution. Production generally has been well
maintained and where reduction in yield is evident, e.g. in herring around the British
coasts, this is a consequence of over-fishing. Stocks of fish and shellfish inhabiting shallow
coastal waters and particularly estuaries are subject to many human pressures, of which
reduced water quality due to pullutants is one. The most damaging effects of pollution
are reduction in available oxygen, increased turbidity due to suspended material and
discolouration, and deposition of organic material on the bottom. Sewage and other
organic effluents (such as food-processing wastes) with a high biological oxygen demand
are the prime causes of these conditions. Potentially harmful metals and synthetic organic
substances resistant to breakdown may accumulate in estuarine and coastal sediments,
particularly muddy sands, silts and muds containing a high proportion of organic matter,
and will continue to release potential pollutants long after shore discharges are controlled.
Attention to marine pollution problems needs to be focussed on such estuarine and
coastal sediments and the ways by which their polluting loads are built up and released. A
better understanding of the effects of sewage discharge to the marine environment of the
United Kingdom is needed and might bring about a modification of the present policy of
sewage disposal. Increased research in this field is highly desirable.

INTRODUCTION
The widely-held impression

that

the

productivity

of the

sea h a s b e e n

r e d u c e d b y p o l l u t a n t s is i n c o r r e c t . N o r is t h e r e a s e r i o u s t h r e a t t h a t t h i s w i l l
o c c u r in t h e n e a r f u t u r e . T h e r e is n o e v i d e n c e f o r a b e l i e f t h a t s u b s t a n c e s at
present

unrecognized

as

potentially

damaging

contaminants

are steadily

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building up in the sea and within a few years will reach catastrophic levels
and will turn the oceans into deserts. In general, changes occur slowly in the
sea and, although fisheries m a y appear to decline rather rapidly, as the
herring fisheries around Britain have done, these major changes are principally the result of overfishing and are n o t due to natural fluctuations or
pollution.
It is generally agreed that no offshore stock of fish or shellfish shows
evidence of reduction o f r e c r ui t m e nt to the exploitable stock as the result of
pollution. In ot her words, there is no evidence o f significant reduction in the
n u m b e r of y o u n g fish growing up to exploitable size year by year because of
losses at the egg or larval stage, or diminished fecundity in the breeding
stock, because of direct or insidious effects of oil, mercury, cadmium, chlorinated h y d r o c a r b o n s , radioactivity or any of the ot her pollutants known by
name to journalists or broadcasters. Is there then no marine pollution
problem? Is it just a not he r scare generated by sensation-hungy pressmen?
The answer is, of course, n o - there are areas of concern, especially for
resources in coastal waters and estuaries, and there are certain difficult
public health and amenity problems. In considering these it is necessary to
begin at the beginning with the definition o f marine pollution.

Dr. H.A. Cole is a graduate of the University of Wales. F r o m 1959 until he retired in
1974 he was Director of Fishery Research
at the Fisheries L aborat ory, L ow est oft ,
England. He has written extensively on
shellfish biology, fishery management and
marine pollution.

264

DEFINITIONS
The internationally accepted definition of marine pollution is that used by
the United Nations Joint Group of Experts on the Scientific Aspects of
Marine Pollution (GESAMP) which reads: " I n t r o d u c t i o n by man of substances or energy to the marine environment resulting in such deleterious
effects as harm to living resources or marine life, hazards to human health,
hindrance to marine activities, including fishing, impairment of quality for
use of seawater and reduction of amenities."
As now stated, the definition reflects the confused English often used by
multi-national committees and the words "or marine life" and "including
fishing" are clearly superfluous while the value of the reference to seawater
quality is dubious. However, the essential concept linking pollution with
harm is sufficiently evident and the principal areas in which harmful effects
may be experienced are clearly stated. At this point it may be useful to give
established examples of each main category of harmful effect. In relation to
living resources the deterioration of estuaries as the result of the discharge of
sewage and other wastes, e.g. from food processing, slaughter houses,
laundries and distilleries, which mop up the available oxygen and so prevent
the passage of salmon, is well known, as, because of sewage contamination, is
the banning of collecting and marketing of shellfish from such estuaries
without purification. This is a human health risk (the second category of
effects) but in many estuaries the environmental conditions are so poor that
the shellfish themselves are no longer able to survive. Other well-known
public health problems are the contamination by sewage of bathing beaches
and the accumulation of mercury and cadmium in fish and shellfish in areas
where wastes containing these metals have been discharged. Among conservation problems, the oiling of seabirds is so well-known as to need no elaboration here. On the amenity front we are all aware of the nuisance created by
oil on beaches but examples of interference with other legitimate activities
do n o t perhaps come readily to mind although they are, in fact, both
numerous and varied. Sewage enrichment causes unwelcome growths of
marine algae, particularly Ulva and Enteromorpha, which may be a nuisance
on public beaches; silting of estuaries and approaches to ports may be
accelerated if there is a heavy discharge of organic wastes or increased
production due to nutrients derived from domestic wastes; waste plastic
ropes and nets may become entangled in ships' propellers and plastic film
may block the water intakes to their engines and, of course, the accumulation of such waste and other garbage, discharged by ships, is a persistent
nuisance on many beaches.

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THE AREAS PRINCIPALLY AT RISK

Man's capacity to alter the character of the open oceans or their productivity is quite limited. One must make an exception to this in respect of
potentially toxic man-made chlorinated hydrocarbons which ar~ largely
airborne and may be distributed worldwide, and this will be discussed
further later in this paper. It is in shallow coastal water and particularly in
estuaries (Royal Commission, 1972), inlets and semi-enclosed seas, e.g. the
Baltic (ICES, 1977) and the Mediterranean (Osterberg and Keckes, 1977)
that man's capacity to cause damage is most evident: it is in these areas that
pollution prevention efforts should be concentrated.
The estuarine environment is particularly subject to human pressure. Any
estuary deep enough to admit ships inevitably attracts development while
those which are shallow with low-lying shores are much in demand for
recreational activities. Moreover, the rivers that discharge into estuaries are
invariably regarded as the natural outlets for sewage and industrial wastes
produced inland. The estuarine environment is naturally one where the animals and plants must be adaptable to a wide range of physical and chemical
c h a n g e s - - t e m p e r a t u r e , salinity, current speed, suspended matter, e t c . - if
they are to survive. The effects of the addition of sewage and industrial
wastes are principally evident in loss of oxygen, additional suspended matter
and reduction in light penetration. These are best regarded as a further addition to the environmental stresses to which the estuarine biota are normally
subjected. However, depletion of oxygen and its immediate consequences on
chemical balance must be regarded as a major new stress factor and, when
combined with a heavy addition to the organic matter load, can be identified
as the aspect of waste disposal likely to cause most harm. Although fish kills
in rivers and estuaries as the result of the occasional inadvertent release of
poisonous substances, such as cyanides, make the headlines because the
damage is clearly evident, the gradual depressing effect of reduced oxygen
levels and high suspended matter loads is much more serious and is the prime
cause of the generally deplorable condition of estuaries in Britain. Nor can
the situation be said to be improving much, although numerous plans have
been discussed, because local and regional authorities generally tend to
regard their sewage and waste disposal problems as solved if they can reach
an estuary or the sea.
Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on whether one is a waste
disposer or concerned with conservation of natural resources, production of
fish and shellfish from the estuaries of Britain does not represent a large part
of the total catch. Its cash value at first sale is probably no more than 2% of
the total value of all fish and shellfish landed and certainly less than 4%. It
does, however, contain one species of great social importance, particularly in

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Scotland, the Atlantic salmon. Although some additional salmon could no

d o u b t be produced by cleaning up rivers which formerly supported it and
which still have satisfactory conditions for spawning in the upper reaches, as
has been shown previously (Cole, 1974), examination of the statistics of
landings from existing salmon rivers reveals no evidence of the effects of
pollution during the post-war period of industrial re-development and
population increase.
By the expenditure of vast sums, including the provision of fish passes in
the freshwater reaches, no d o u b t British Members of Parliament could be
enabled to fish for salmon from the terrace of the Houses of Parliament but
where would the survivors go to spawn?
But to return to the question of the value of estuarine production in
Britain. This is also important for certain classes of molluscan shellfish,
especially mussels, cockles and oysters, but these fisheries have been allowed
to decline very greatly due to the pressure of development. They have
succumbed to the argument that their cash value is less than that of the
industrial, housing or recreational activities with which t h e y have been
largely replaced in m a n y estuaries. It may be regarded as a failure of national
planning and, although often stated, the argument that certain estuaries are
uniquely suited environmentally to the production of shellfish and should be
reserved, and fully developed, for that purpose, has rarely prevailed. There
are one or two tiny examples of successful conservation that could be
quoted from the United Kingdom, such as the Helford River in Cornwall and
the N e ~ l o w n River in the Isle of Wight, but these must be set against a very
long list of grounds productive at the end of the last century (Bulstrode
1896) where there are either no full-time fishermen at all or only the
remnants of a dying industry.
In 1976 Nephrops (scampi) and scalops and queens together represented
nearly 60% by value of the UK shellfish landings. In that year oysters,
mussels and cockles -- the estuarine species - represented only about 6% by
value compared with approximately 40% 60 years ago.
Although estuaries are crucially important to only a few species of fish
(salmon, sea trout, eels, smelts and flounders) which together represent only
about 1% of the total landings, sheltered shallow coastal bays and inlets are
in a different category. They are the nursery grounds of several very
important sea fish, e.g. plaice, sole, turbot, herring, etc. which together
figure largely in the British catch. Any drastic alteration of these shallow
coastal nursery areas by pollutants could reduce survival of young fish and so
affect recruitment. The expression "drastic alteration" is used deliberately
because the natural losses of young fish during their early stages are very
high indeed and small reductions due to pollution would certainly be insignificant. Most fish are highly fecund and this excessive production of eggs and

267

larvae is the mechanism whereby high natural losses due to predation in the
planktonic stage and adverse environmental factors, such as out-of-phase
production of food organisms, can be absorbed without damaging effects on
recruitment. Nevertheless it is important to understand that natural recruitment in species that have been studied shows great variation from year to
year (by two orders of magnitude or more in some species).

SEWAG E
There are certain aspects of sewage<lisposal policy in Britain which tend
to lead to an unsatisfactory situation in estuaries and coastal waters.
(1) There is a continued drive to provide main sewerage in rural areas
where this is lacking, i.e., where many properties are still served by septic
tanks or cesspools. (Earth closets are now rather rare.) This results in a
steadily increasing level of sewage effluent in rivers and a higher demand for
domestic water.
(2) Industrial usage of water is increasing steadily and this results in
greater abstraction from rivers and consequently reduced water flow into
estuaries.
(3) Because m a n y inland sewage plants are overloaded or in need of
expensive modernization, wherever there is a possibility of reaching tidal
waters or the coast, by a trunk sewer, picking up effluents from several
plants, this possibility is seriously explored and often adopted. In such
schemes, to save money, the degree of treatment of the effluent is reduced,
sometimes to the extent that only coarse screening and comminution is
adopted, the sewage being discharged in a virtually untreated condition.
(4) Where sewage plants are situated so far inland that discharge to tidal
waters is impossible and full treatment is necessary, the disposal of the
resulting sludge is a serious problem. Generally speaking, farmers do not
want it, preferring to use either balanced fertilizers w i t h o u t the possibility of
adding potentially toxic elements to the soil, or their own farmyard manure;
and other means of disposal on the land are very limited. Incineration is
costly because of air pollution restrictions and profitable use of the heat
generated is rarely possible. Consequently disposal of sludge by dumping at
sea is increasingly favoured; it has been done for more than 100 years by
L o n d o n and for shorter periods by several other large conurbations, e.g.,
Glasgow and Manchester.
(5) Because of increased public pressure to protect recreational beaches
from contamination, the practice of discharging by pipelines carried well out
to sea, even to several miles, is being increasingly adopted. While this may
sometimes serve also to protect coastal shellfish beds from pollution, the

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high cost of such offshore pipelines (often involving pumping of effluent)

creates pressure to reduce treatment and to discharge comminuted crude
sewage. Moreover, as t r e a t m e n t is reduced, it becomes possible to accept
toxic industrial wastes which it would not be feasible to take at the sewage
works if full treatment were given. These toxic wastes, although diluted, are
therefore discharged to the sea through the pipline virtually untreated.
Unfortunately, although there has been a determined effort to maintain
the water quality of rivers and streams and their biological conditions ("fish
life"), and some improvement has been claimed here and there, it has
remained official policy in the United Kingdom to permit, and even encourage, the discharge of sewage to estuaries and to the sea after no more treatment than screening and comminution. Although this " t r e a t m e n t " has the
effects of making sewage less recognizable, and of aiding dispersion and
breakdown, it does not reduce its polluting capacity. Although some open
coast beaches may become less contaminated because of this policy,
estuaries are rarely regarded as bathing areas and, although important for
sailing, this is not a sport which is deemed to require seawater of a high
sanita.ry quality. A rather low water quality is therefore acceptable on
amenity grounds.
The general necessity, in inland areas, of taking industrial wastes into the
public sewage system, and the demand for high emission standards for
effluents to protect fish life in rivers, lead inevitably to a situation where
sewage plant sludges from industrial areas contain substantial amounts of
metals and organic s u b s t a n c e s - especially synthetic compounds such as
chlorinated h y d r o c a r b o n s - - w h i c h are resistant to breakdown. These
contaminated sludges are increasingly being dumped at sea where the
persistent materials largely accumulate in sediments and are only very slowly
dispersed. Because sea dumping is an expensive operation compared with
land disposal, dumping grounds tend to be rather near the land and certainly
within fishing depth. Some sites used historically have proved to be very
suitable for dispersion, e.g. the outer Thames, but others have proved rather
hazardous, e.g., New York Bight. If dumping of sewage sludge at sea is to be
extended then the choice of sites needs to be made only after expert assessment of the anticipated water movements, including those at the sea bottom,
and of the likely effects on fish and shellfish (see Kullenberg, 1975).

OIL
Oil pollution is an emotive subject in Britain because of the continued
presence of tar balls and oiled seabirds on m a n y south- and east-coast
recreational beaches. However, from the point of view of fisheries, one has

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to say that oil is a serious problem only to those engaged in the cultivation
of molluscan shellfish, owing to oily flavours and fouling. To those engaged
in offshore fishing, the presence of an oil industry in British waters has often
meant an additional source of income from the use of obsolescent fishing
vessels for various purposes connected with the oil industry and, one
suspects, a source of compensation for damage to fishing gear by drums,
wires and other obstacles on the seabed without the necessity for absolute
proof of the origin of the obstacles. Undoubtedly, ships servicing oil rigs and
production platforms dump rubbish at sea but so do ships of other kinds,
including fishing vessels.
Because oil and gas rigs and platforms must be located where the resources
are found, and it is necessary to prescribe safety zones around such structures in which fishing is prohibited, some loss of fishing opportunity must be
sustained. Similarly with pipelines which, although initially buried, may later
be exposed. However, since adequate conservation is the prime requirement
to maintain the productivity of fish stocks in the present highly competitive
situation, any device which incidentally protects some part of the stock from
exploitation (and gives other benefits) should surely be welcomed.
Tainting by oil, or by any of the range of strong-smelling organic substances, such as phenols, which produce " o f f " fiavours, is occasionally
experienced in fish and more often in shellfish taken close inshore. It is
known, however, that these taints can be caused naturally by heavy feeding
on certain species, e.g. of planktonic organisms. Such taints may cause
serious short-term disruption of marketing which may lead to financial loss.
When present in molluscan shellfish they may persist for several months due,
it is believed, in the case of oil, to limited capacity to metabolise certain
hydrocarbons (GESAMP, 1977).
Obviously, heavy oil spills, such as that from the Amoco Cadiz, can
blanket large areas of shore, and mollusc cultivators may suffer severe losses
where stocks are concentrated. Nevertheless, it is remarkable how little
damage of this kind has been done by the major oil spills which have
occurred throughout the world. In the example of the Torrey Canyon spill
there were no significant losses of this kind, indeed no significant effects on
fisheries of any kind.
Stocks of certain seabirds, particularly auks, in British waters, are becoming depleted by oil pollution (Bourne, 1976). Because most of these birds
produce only one egg, their power of recovery is limited and this, coupled
with human disturbance of their breeding haunts, seems likely to result in
extinction of the remaining colonies of a few species on the south and southwest coasts of the British Isles. However, the species affected are extremely
a b u n d a n t further north, particularly in northwest Scotland, the Scottish
Islands and along the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Attempts to reduce losses off

270

southern Britain or to rehabilitate oiled birds seem unlikely to add significantly to the survival of the stock and the effort involved would, perhaps, be
better diverted to serious research on methods of increasing survival, e.g. by
control of predators, particularly rats, at major breeding sites in areas well
away from the main oil tanker routes. Bird watching is an important pastime,
and hence has an economic value, and the northwest of Britain is no longer
to be regarded as out of reach of the main centres of population.
Although estimates of the relative importance of different sources of oil in
the sea differ widely (GESAMP, 1977), the major cause of oiled seabirds is
undoubtedly spillage from ships. Operational discharges are already fully
covered by the regulations made by the Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organisation (IMCO) on the basis of the various international conventions dealing with the prevention of oil polution. Unfortunately, not all
countries operating oil tankers have ratified these conventions and enforcem e n t of their provisions is very difficult. The need is not, however, for more
regulation since most spills arise from human frailty or neglect rather than
from inadequacy of the regulations. Even attempts at closer regulation of
ship traffic in crowded shipping lanes, e.g. in the English Channel, are
unlikely to produce much effect unless the men engaged accept greater
responsibility for their actions and the possible environmental consequences.
It can, however, be claimed that the tightening up of regulations that has
occurred over the last 10 years or so has had a beneficial effect, since oil pollution has remained at about the same level, although the a m o u n t of oil
moved around the oceans has substantially increased. Further improvement
will only come very slowly as appreciation of the importance of environmental quality grows as the result of education and publicity. This seems an
appropriate m o m e n t to say that such education and publicity (particularly
the latter) must n o t take the form of propagating 'scares' associated with
such emotive subjects as cancer. In the longer term these tactics (over-statem e n t to attract attention ) are u n d o u b t e d l y counterproductive--they may
sell newspapers but they do not remedy pollution.

CHLORINATED HYDROCARBONS
There is much misunderstanding of the status of DDT, dieldrin, etc., as
marine pollutants. Although their use as insecticides has u n d o u b t e d l y caused
severe depletion of certain birds of prey, notably the peregrine, the only
marine fishery problems created, have, with one exception, arisen from
heavy discharges of residues to rivers from plants making the pesticide or
from industrial use, e.g. in the moth-proofing of carpets. The exception is
the banning of the sale for human consumption of codliver oil derived from

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Baltic fish in certain riparian countries in that area following heavy use of
DDT. Yet, as is generally known, DDT or its breakdown products have been
found t h r o u g h o u t the oceans of the world in biological material wherever
t h e y have been looked for with the highly sensitive instrumentation now
available to the analytical chemist. This worldwide spread has occurred for
three main reasons: (a) heavy losses to the atmosphere during spraying; (b)
persistence (half-life in the sea is thought to lie between 10 and 20 years);
and (c) passage through food chains with possibly some biomagnification in
top predators such as birds of prey and seals.
No adverse effects in human beings due to consumption of seafood
contaminated by DDT or its breakdown products have been demonstrated.
In several species of seabirds, however, egg shell thinning and loss o f reproductive capability have been demonstrated. In seals, particularly in the
Baltic, changes in reproductive organs leading to loss of fertility, possibly
sufficient to produce an effect at population level, have been shown to occur
in animals containing high levels of DDT and PCBs, but the latest studies
seem to implicate PCBs as the principal causative factor (Jensen, 1977).
PCBs were used in industry with substantial losses to the environment for
about 20 years before adverse effects were suspected (Jensen, 1972). They
have now been shown to be distributed worldwide and there is some field
evidence of adverse effects in the marine environment, particularly on
reproductive performance. Their continued use in situations where loss may
occur to the environment has been generally condemned and restrictions
have been introduced in many c o u n t r i e s - in the UK on a voluntary basis.
Unfortunately PCBs seem to be even more persistent than DDT and other
chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticides and whereas levels of DDT and its
metabolites have fallen in recent years in marine biota in European seas,
levels of PCBs have remained virtually unchanged (OECD analyses).

PERSISTENCE OF POTENTIAL POLLUTANTS IN SEDIMENTS

Sediments, particularly those containing a high proportion of fine material
(silt and clay fractions) and a substantial content of organic material, are the
main resting place of most of the potentially harmful substances discharged
to the sea. Coarse and fine sands and gravels are much less effective in holding potential pollutants. The substances readily held by adsorptive sediments
of the character described include mercury, lead, ruthenium, zirconium/
niobium, caesium and plutonium; many chlorinated hydrocarbon pesticide
residues and PCBs; and aromatic hydrocarbons derived from oil. This list
contains most of the substances causing concern because their presence in
seafood could create a human health risk.

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Where fine sediments and organic matter come to rest on the sea b o t t o m
is, of course, governed by the location of sources (e.g., rivers and major
sewage and industrial waste discharge points), current speed and direction,
tidal movements, wind, and underlying bottom topography. No general
statement can be made about the distribution of soft deposits around the
coasts of the United Kingdom. However, it will be obvious that they occur
extensively inside and just outside the mouths of estuaries, in sheltered inlets
and bays and in deeper channels and holes below the effects of wave action.
They are scarce close inshore on open rocky coasts exposed to wind and
tide. As a broad generalisation, soft bottoms (fine sand, silt and mud) are
more productive and hence support greater quantities of fish and shellfish
than b o t t o m s of coarse sand, gravel, stones or rock. By definition, they are
subject to less disturbance by water movement and this reduces the rate of
removal of adsorbed material into the overlying water mass. Because soft
bottoms generally contain a richer benthic fauna than coarse grounds, they
are favoured by bottom-feeding fish. These factors tend to provide a
situatioa in which transfer of adsorbed substances from the bottom and
benthic fauna to fish is facilitated and it is not surprising to find, for
example, that a flatfish such as the flounder (Platichthys flesus) which lives
and feeds over soft bottoms and spends much of its time in estuaries, yields
high values for mercury (MAFF, 1971, 1973).
It cm~ easily be appreciated that the policy of discharging comminuted
sewage with included industrial wastes to estuaries and coastal waters, combined with increased dumping of sewage sludges, must lead to a continuing
build-up of these "blacklist" substances in coastal sediments. Although they
are all subject to gradual dispersion into deeper water, this process is very
slow in the case of metals such as mercury and lead, which are converted to
virtually insoluble sulphides in the deeper layers of sediments, and complex
organic substances such as the synthetic halogenated hydrocarbons for which
natural breakdown processes through the action of microorganisms are
virtually absent. Thus even if their potential for harm is recognised and the
discharges reduced or stopped, a reserve of these persistent pollutants
u n f o r t u n a t e l y will remain for many years in the sediments, which will
continue to contaminate the overlying water, benthic organisms and the fish
and other animals that feed on them. In the case of mercury, which is slowly
converted from inorganic to methylated form in the sediments, the potentiality for causing serious contamination to seafood may be only slowly
reduced over a period of years.
Lead requires special attention because much of that reaching the sea is
derived from the use in m o t o r cars of petrol containing lead anti-knock additives. Perhaps in 50 years, due to the running down of oil reserves, the use of
petrol may diminish but no d o u b t by then alternative fuels will have been

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developed and may still require the addition of anti-knock compounds. However, for the immediate future (i.e., 10--20 years), a steady increase in the
use of petrol-driven cars seems inevitable. This continued addition of lead, to
.the air, even on the present scale, and its transfer to coastal sediments must
be viewed with concern because already levels in seafood, especially
molluscs, are high enough to attract official attention (MAFF, 1972, 1975).
Although attention is at the m o m e n t rightly focussed on drinking water in
softwater areas with lead pipes in the household supply systems (Beattie et
al., 1972; Dept. of Environment, 1974, 1977), further research seems likely
to increase rather than diminish concern about possible effects of lead on
mental performance in young children. In such a context the fact that seafood may be a major source of lead in the diet might adversely effect sales.
Some further t h o u g h t needs to be given not only to lead levels in air in urban
environments but to the ultimate fate of much of this airborne lead and its
distribution on the sea b o t t o m . The dynamics of the exchange between air,
seawater, sediments and biota need to be further elucidated. The general
adoption of improved methods of sample collection, treatment and analysis
is essential.

RADIOACTIVITY
Public debate concerning radioactive waste disposal is concerned mostly
with the admittedly severe problem of safe disposal of high-level material,
especially that derived from fuel reprocessing. In a small, heavily populated
country such as the United Kingdom, although rock formations could be
located in which high-level wastes could be safely contained underground, it
seems highly unlikely that public consent will be obtained for their use. For
this reason, burial within suitable rock formations under the sea, preferably
under international control, may well be adopted. A scheme for such a burial
facility is described and illustrated in the 6th Report of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (1976), and is recommended for study as a
"reasonable o p t i o n " .
At present, low-level liquid waste and low- and medium-level solid wastes
are disposed of at sea, the former by discharge from pipelines and the latter
by dumping in very deep water well beyond the edge of the Continental
Shelf. There is no evidence that radioactive waste disposal by the United
Kingdom by either method has created any public health hazard or has had
any discernible effect on organic production. British disposal practice is
based firmly upon the interpretation by the Medical Research Council of the
recommendations of the International Council on Radiological Protection
(ICRP) and the results of disposals to the marine environment have been

274

regularly described and published (see Mitchell, 1977, and earlier papers
from the Fisheries Radiobiological Laboratory, Lowestoft). According to the
definition of pollution generally adopted internationally (see above),
radioactive waste disposal in the seas around Britain has created no pollution; certainly no harm has been done to living resources and human health
has been fully safeguarded.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

Sewage disposal u n d o u b t e d l y constitutes the main source of marine pollution problems. It is a worldwide problem which is bound to increase in
importance in all countries whether developed and industrialised or
undeveloped and mainly engaged in primary production. The scale of the
problem is inevitably controlled by population size and distribution and
gross national product per unit of population. As "prosperity" increases the
problem becomes more severe. Problems associated with sewage disposal to
the sea have received much less attention from research and far less publicity
than those due to metals and pesticides, which are much easier to control.
Oil is, like sewage disposal, indispensible in a civilised society but, apal~
from accidents due to human frailty, does not seem to be capable of causing
lasting damage to the marine environment leading to a loss of production. It
is likely to continue as a severe and costly amenity problem and losses of
seabirds cannot be avoided.
Radioactivity is a natural characteristic of the marine environment and the
production of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes does not seem likely to
create a significant hazard to human health or living resources in a marine
context. It is assumed that means of safely disposing of high-level radioactive
wastes will be internationally adopted, of which burial within the sea bed
seems to be a possible choice for the United Kingdom.
Significantly damaging effects of pollution are likely to be confined to
coastal waters and, particularly, estuaries, especially where soft b o t t o m sediments adsorb and retain substantial amounts of potentially harmful metals
and persistent organic substances. More attention should be given to the
condition of these sediments, to the mechanisms by which pollutants
accumulate and are released and to the exchange between water, sediments
and biota. The results should be applied in a review of present U.K. sewage
disposal policy which tends to maintain conditions in rivers at the expense of
estuaries and the sea.
In respect of contaminants such as mercury and cadmium, which are
objectionable because t h e y may accumulate in coastal seafood to levels
which are unacceptable on public health grounds, there is no practicable

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alternative to removal from wastes at t he factory, or in special waste treatmerit centres on land. Discharge to sewers must be avoided since o r t h o d o x
t r e a t m e n t merely transfers the bulk o f the metals to the sludges which can
be neither disposed of satisfactorily on land, nor d u m p e d at sea.
Wastes containing organic substances which are both highly persistent and
potentially toxic, such as PCBs, can be dest royed by incineration and this
has successfully been done on ships at sea, where air cont am i nat i on problems
associated with land-based incinerators can be avoided.
If substances of unique industrial importance, such as mercury, are
considered to be sufficiently objectionable to require special measures to
control their loss to the environment, then a licensing system may have to be
introduced. It is interesting, however, to not e that a recent report from the
National Swedish E nvi r onm ent Protection Board, while maintaining the
chlor-alkali industry as the main source o f " i n t e n t i o n a l " air-borne release of
mercury, lists dentistry as the principal source of " i n t e n t i o n a l " water-borne
mer cu r y ( A n o n y m o u s , 1978). " U n i n t e n t i o n a l " sources of release are listed
b u t their comparative i m por t ance is not stated.
The flux of lead to coastal waters, its distribution, residence time in sedimerits and accumulation in seafood needs to be more closely studied.
Although there are substantial discharges by rivers of lead released from
metalliferous rocks, particularly disused mines, it is the continued increase in
m o t o r traffic using leaded petrols that causes most concern since a substantial p r o p o r t i o n of the lead discharged from m o t o r exhausts reaches the
sea. The processes of transfer from air to sea, seawater to sediments and seawater/sediments to biota have been little studied and are w o r t h y of closer
atten tio n . The possible p r o d u c t i o n of organo-lead c o m p o u n d s in the marine
en v ir o n m e nt needs to be considered.
Because, locally, habitat modification and disturbance due to developmen t and human pressure may be even more damaging than reduction in
water quality due to the discharge o f sewage and industrial wastes, it may be
desirable to designate certain estuaries, inlets, bays and even stretches of
open coast as 'areas of special importance to fisheries' because of their high
productivity, unique environmental conditions, use as spawning grounds or
migration paths, and to give these special p r o t e c t i o n by means of planning
restrictions. The need to p r o t e c t highly productive agricultural land has
already been generally conceded but, as has oft en been stated, the yield of
protein-rich food from well-managed shellfish beds may equal or exceed that
from good-quality farm land.

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ACKNOWL EDG EM ENT

T h i s p a p e r is b a s e d u p o n a l e c t u r e g i v e n a t t h e S e p t e m b e r , 1 9 7 8 , m e e t i n g
of Section D ( Z o o l o g y ) of the British Association for the A d v a n c e m e n t of
Science.

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