EAST-COAST pollution would make Guernsey Sea Farms think twice before setting up again in the island. The company produces seed oysters at the former Hougue Noirmont quarry in the Vale. The hatchery process is highly technical and very clean water is essential, but managing director Mark Dravers said poor water quality was a major concern for the future.
‘We’ve got no plans to relocate, but if we were to start again I would not do it in Guernsey because the water is not as good as it could be and we have higher costs over here,’ said Mr Dravers, who with his wife, Penny, started the hatchery in 1983 and has run the seed-oyster production farm since taking over the business in 1987.
‘What we need is clean water, which we don’t always have. It is one of the reasons we came to Guernsey in the first place. We also trade on the fact that we are disease-free.’
Mr Dravers has been a vocal supporter of full sewage treatment for the island but said that although sewage remained a concern, the pollution problems at hand were as yet unidentified.
He said man-made chemicals could be to blame.
‘All we know is that the seawater is often of poor quality to the extent that we are unable to keep the stages of the oyster alive. We have spent a lot of time investigating this and have spent a long time working with laboratories in the UK but have not got to the bottom of it.’
He added that the Control of Pollution Law covering the marine environment was still to be enacted. ‘It is still the case today that if you discharge any chemical into the marine environment, you are not breaking the law.’
Mr Dravers said full sewage treatment would not be a complete solution to the problem because certain chemicals would continue to pass through. He called for toxicity-based content monitoring of the discharge.
Sea fisheries officer David Wilkinson said the problem referred to could be due to household chemicals that are put down toilets.
‘There is a big thing about whether these have been tested in natural environments and they probably have not. That could be a starting point, but nobody knows for sure,’ he said.
Article posted on 29th September, 2006 - 12.00am
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