Campaigners gathered in Whitehaven yesterday to hand over a 54,750-name petition in a bid to stop any more borehole drilling of the seabed off the West Cumbrian coast.
To mark World Oceans Day, campaigners handed over the petition to the Marine Management Organisation and met at Whitehaven’s Queen’s Dock.
They are protesting against the tests which have been carried out as part of plans to create a Geological Disposal Facility for radioactive waste.
It was also a chance for people to see the pollution in Whitehaven Harbour, which has turned the water orange and is believed to be caused by old mine workings.
Protestors said: “Given the continuing pollution pouring into Whitehaven Harbour from old mine works we call on the Marine Management Organisation to cancel existing mining licences and not to licence any further shallow or deep mining investigations and developments.
“The red water in Whitehaven should be a red flag to any new mining developments in the area from Furness to the the Solway where there is a honeycomb of old mine workings within a complex geology of rocks and groundwater.
“Nuclear dump investigations and the new deep coal mine adjacent to those investigations should be halted right now.”
The covering letter to the Marine Management Organisation was signed by Radiation Free Lakeland, Nuclear Free Local Authorities and the Close Capenhurst Campaign.
Councillor Lawrence O’Neill, The Chair of UK/Ireland Nuclear Free Local Authorities said: “The NFLA believes that as this (seismic blasting) was an activity to support the creation of a Geological Disposal Facility, in which to dump Britain’s legacy and future high-level nuclear waste, rather than an altruistic scientific project, that it was wrong for Nuclear Waste Services to claim an exemption from licensing and that it was wrong for the MMO to accept their claim to an exemption so readily.”
