Quality of coastline in the North West of Cumbria
Dear Environment Agency,
I am writing to make a request on all the information I am entitled to under the freedom of information act and the environmental information regulations.
In order to assist you with this request, I am outlining my query as specifically as possible.
If however this request is too wide or too unclear, I would be grateful if you could contact me as I understand that under the act, you are required to advise and assist requesters.
Can you confirm the water quality along the coastline of North-West Cumbria, specifically outside the towns of Whitehaven, Workington and Sea-scale?
I am under the belief that you have recently carried out a number of environmental tests in this area that did not finish until January this year.
I would like to know the findings of those tests and any other information you have on the effects to this stretch of coast. There used to be a number of industrial companies that would pump various resources into the sea. For that reason I am keen to know the present condition of the local sea and wildlife.
Yours faithfully,
Sarah Turnbull
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Dear Sarah,
Thank you for your enquiry regarding the water quality along the coastline of North-West Cumbria.
For your information, I have passed your query to our local External Relations Team (Planning and Corporate Services) for advice. They will check whether we hold this information and they will be in touch with you shortly.
The External Relations team have 20 working days from the date we receive your enquiry to provide a response, and they will get this to you as soon as possible.
Should you wish to contact them in the meantime, their details are below. Please quote your Enquiry Ref 120229/SC32 in your correspondence with us.
External Relations
Planning and Corporate Services
Environment Agency
North West Region, Northern Area
Ghyll Mount
Gillan Way
Penrith 40 Business Park
PENRITH
CA11 9BP
Tel: 03708 506506
If we can be of further assistance, please contact us again.
Kind Regards,
Simon Cutts
Customer Service Advisor
National Customer Contact Centre
Part of National Operations
Environment Agency
i www.environment-agency.gov.uk/
( 03708 506506
Dear Sarah,
Thank you for contacting the Environment Agency, North West.
Please see below regarding our response times and environmental incident
reporting.
In accordance with our customer charter we will endeavour to respond
within 10 working days, and if this is not possible a full response will
be sent within 20 working days.
The Customer Charter (response days) for all enquiries start from the next
working day of you receiving this auto reply from us. For example an
e-mail’s customer charter sent to us on a Friday will start on the
following Monday providing this isn’t a bank holiday.
For further information on our Customer Charter please see
[1]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/abo...
If you wish to report an incident i.e. pollution, fish in distress,
dumping of hazardous waste, etc please do not use this e-mail service
instead please call our free-phone 24 hour Incident Hotline on 0800 80 70
60. For more details about incident reporting please see:
[2]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/con...
I have forwarded your request to the relevant team and will be in touch
shortly. If you have any queries in the meantime please contact the
[3][email address] quoting your reference number
PEN3349.
Many thanks,
Anne
Anne Ball - Customer Services Officer
Customer Services
Environment Agency
Penrith Area Office
[4][email address]
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Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the
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If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our
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Find out more about the Environment Agency at
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Our
Ref: PEN3349
Date: 2/3/12
Dear Sarah,
PUBLIC REGISTER AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION REQUEST
Water quality along the coastline of North West Cumbria
Thank you for your email regarding the above. Requests for recorded
information are generally governed by the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(FOIA).The information you have requested is environmental and is
therefore exempt from the provisions of FOIA by FOIA s.39(1). We have
therefore considered your request under the Environmental Information
Regulations 2004 (EIR). Please find our response below:
Bathing waters on NW Cumbrian Coast (excluding Duddon Estuary):
Walney Biggar Bank
Walney Sandy Gap
Walney West Shore
Silecroft
Seascale
St Bees
Allonby South
Allonby West Winds
Silloth
Skinburness
The bathing waters around the towns specifically asked about are:
Seascale NY 03400 01000
St Bees NX 95900 11700
The bathing water data collected by the Environment Agency during the
bathing season for 2011 at Seascale and St Bees is attached.
We have carried out 'catchment walkovers' along the length of the North
West's coastline, including sections of West Cumbrian Coast which could
impact bathing water quality. These visual walkovers were completed in
January 2012 and we are currently finalising the reports detailing the
findings. These are expected by the end of March 2012. The catchment
behind Seascale bathing water was included in the catchment walkover
project due to bathing water quality concerns. We will forward the
relevant reports to you once these are finalised.
Information the bathing water profile for each bathing water in England
and Wales, including Seascale and St Bees bathing waters can be found at:
[1]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/hom...
The profiles include information on the key sources of pollution that can
impact each bathing water as well as including measures/actions that have
been taken to address this and future actions.
Further information on bathing waters, including the revised Bathing Water
Directive, can be found at:
[2]http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/hom...
Defra's website also includes useful information on bathing waters
including the legislation:
[3]http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/qual...
If you require any further information, please do not hesitate to contact
us.
Rights of appeal
We hope that our response has addressed all of the questions that you have
asked. However, if you are not satisfied with our response to your request
for information, you can contact us to ask for our decision to be
reviewed. If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who is the statutory regulator for
Freedom of Information. Their contact details are: Office of the
Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire
SK9 5AF .
Tel: 01625 545700. Fax: 01625 524 510
email: [email address].
Website: http//www.ico.gov.uk
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Yours sincerely,
Anne
Anne Ball
Customer Services Officer
Direct dial: 01925 54 2937
E-mail: [email address]
Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally
privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify
the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else.
We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should
still check any attachment before opening it.
We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to
under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for
litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any
Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the
sender or recipient, for business purposes.
If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our
terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506.
Find out more about the Environment Agency at
[5]www.environment-agency.gov.uk
References
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Dear NW North Penrith, Information Requests,
Thank you for your reply.
Does this mean the only parts of coastline tested for water quality are public bathing areas?
What about the quality or water and coastline especially outside of the towns Whitehaven and Workington?
Have there been any tests in relation to the many chemical and industrial companies that used to pump chemicals and other such materials into the sea?
Has this stretch of coastline in particular been effected by the years of abuse of such power plants?
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Turnbull
Our
Ref: PEN3349
Date: 22/3/12
Dear Sarah,
PUBLIC REGISTER AND ENVIRONMENTAL INFORMATION REQUEST
Water quality along the coastline of Cumbria
Thank you for your email regarding the above site. Requests for recorded
information are generally governed by the Freedom of Information Act 2000
(FOIA).The information you have requested is environmental and is
therefore exempt from the provisions of FOIA by FOIA s.39(1). We have
therefore considered your request under the Environmental Information
Regulations 2004 (EIR). Please find our response attached.
Rights of appeal
We hope that our response has addressed all of the questions that you have
asked. However, if you are not satisfied with our response to your request
for information, you can contact us to ask for our decision to be
reviewed. If you are still not satisfied following this, you can make an
appeal to the Information Commissioner, who is the statutory regulator for
Freedom of Information. Their contact details are: Office of the
Information Commissioner, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire
SK9 5AF .
Tel: 01625 545700. Fax: 01625 524 510
email: [email address].
Website: http//www.ico.gov.uk
Yours sincerely,
Anne
Anne Ball
Customer Services Officer
Direct dial: 01925 54 2937
E-mail: [email address]
Information in this message may be confidential and may be legally
privileged. If you have received this message by mistake, please notify
the sender immediately, delete it and do not copy it to anyone else.
We have checked this email and its attachments for viruses. But you should
still check any attachment before opening it.
We may have to make this message and any reply to it public if asked to
under the Freedom of Information Act, Data Protection Act or for
litigation. Email messages and attachments sent to or from any
Environment Agency address may also be accessed by someone other than the
sender or recipient, for business purposes.
If we have sent you information and you wish to use it please read our
terms and conditions which you can get by calling us on 08708 506 506.
Find out more about the Environment Agency at
[1]www.environment-agency.gov.uk
References
Visible links
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Dear NW North Penrith, Information Requests,
Thank you for getting back to me and the thank you for the information you have sent.
Could you please tell me what 'dangerous substances' you refer to in the table of information sent? In particular for the Lillyhall area.
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Turnbull
Dear NW North Penrith, Information Requests,
In the information I received, it said 'Exposures at Sellafield/Whitehaven receive a significant contribution to the dose from technologically enhanced naturally occurring radionuclides from previous non-nuclear industrial operations.'
What exactly are these previous non-nuclear industrial operations?
Yours sincerely,
Sarah Turnbull
Dear Sarah,
Please accept my apologies for the delay in getting back to you.
The answer to your first question is the Rhodia phosphorus based detergent plant at Whitehaven (previously Albright & Wilson). This site is closed.
Regarding your second query, the 'Dangerous Substances' refers to the European directive for which the sampling is undertaken. Within this directive the dangerous substances are categorised as 'List 1' or 'List 2' and only the substances in these lists are monitored under the Dangerous Substances Directive.
The Environment Agency monitors these substances in water where there is a known discharge of one or more of the substances from a point source upstream. In the case of Lillyhall the dangerous substances in question are mercury, cadmium, lead, chromium, zinc, copper, nickel, arsenic and mecoprop.
I hope this answers your queries.
Kind regards,
Anne
Anne Ball - Customer Services Officer
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