A government scientist says an algal bloom is to blame but campaigners say dredging is the cause.
and instead cited the dumping of dredged materials from the River Tees, which was "ruled out" by officials."It's been abysmal," heHis son Jamie said: "It's heart-breaking really. I think by the end of summer if we can't find a fishing ground I'll be out of a job."Crab fisherman Stan Rennie said his family had fished the waters off Hartlepool for hundreds of years but he feared that would be "lost" with him.
Tim Deere-Jones, a marine pollution researcher commissioned to investigate by Whitby Fishermen's Association, disagreed.Based on information from Defra via a Freedom of Information request, Mr Deere-Jones said quantities of the chemical pyridine were more than 70 times higher in some crab samples. He said he believed that came from "contaminated sediment" being dredged out of the River Tees, with more dredging to be done to allow larger ships into the new Tees Freeport.
Defra said it found "no evidence of a link between the disposal of dredged sediment and the deaths" and the pyridine was not found in the sediment or water samples they tested meaning it "is likely to be linked to biological processes" in the crabs. They also said a survey in January found "live healthy crabs present in the area albeit in reduced numbers".
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