Does toxic waste accumulate in the ocean?
One of the principal ways that toxic chemicals get into fish is through the accumulation of these substances, such as heavy metals, pesticides and organochlorines, in the seabed sediments. Yet this has never been properly investigated. Caldwell Connell stated in their 1976 report that ‘a detailed investigation of levels of pesticides and heavy metals in the marine environment is beyond the scope of this study’. In the 1979 Environment Impact Statements which were also prepared by Caldwell Connell and based on their earlier studies, the possibility of bioaccumulation of toxic substances was dismissed as unlikely since no serious accumulation of these toxic materials had been observed in sediments near the existing outfalls. But how carefully had they looked for sediments? They had only taken samples in three places for analysis of toxic contamination and these were some distance away from the existing outfalls. In a confidential report the SPCC noted that: ‘The statistical significance
