By Joe McCann
A PORTAFERRY woman has called for more to be done to protect and clean Portaferry’s beaches after recent clean-ups recovered huge quantities of rubbish.
Dr Rosslyn Watret has lived in Portaferry for the past six years and has completed a PhD in Marine Studies at the Queen’s University laboratory in the lough shore town. Dr Watret said she also volunteers on the local lifeboat as well and ‘is always by the water’.
Describing the pollution problem, Rosslyn said that while pollution on the beaches had always been bad, in recent weeks it had got a lot worse, prompting her to undertake a number of beach cleans, removing heaps of plastic packaging, containers, bottles and a large amount of cast off fishing debris such as netting, mussel traps and metres and metres of rope.
“I think it’s always extremely bad to be honest with you but over the past three weeks, it’s gotten a lot, lot worse,” she said.
“When you go down to the beach it is really obvious to see but I also found out a lot of it is also buried. Rope, tackle, netting and other items are often buried so you can only see a bit on the surface but when you pull it out, you find out there are loads of it, which leads me to believe it hasn’t been cleared in a really long time.”
Rosslyn began cleaning at Ballyhenry Bay and despite carrying out two clean-ups feels, ‘I don’t think I’ve even touched the surface of it’.
“I haven’t cleaned yet around Ballyhenry Island, I have only done along the coast road so far,” she said, fearing what she would uncover.
Rosslyn said a lot of the debris is also tangled around rocks on the shore as well as just lying on the beach, which prompted her concerns that it could result in wildlife like seals and dolphins becoming entangled in the mess.
Rosslyn said that while she had noticed Ards and North Down Council workmen emptying the public bins down by the ferry quay and along the High Street, there are no bins along the shore.
She said: “I noticed someone else had also done a beach clean and had stacked black bags full of rubbish by one of the public bins, which the council lifted but there are no bins down near the shore.”
Rosslyn added the problem is so great in the area that other people are also carrying out beach cleans.
“The shoreline always used to be very clean in Portaferry and I know there were dedicated locals who would regularly keep it clean but I was down there for a run on New Year’s Day and I have never seen it that dirty,” she said.
“You can see the debris from the Mount Stewart Road. I have seen big plastic sheets which come from builder’s yards and when they get weighed down and sink, they suffocate everything on the sea floor, killing off the coral and the sea sponges and aquatic life that lives on the floor.”
She said that as the area is environmentally and scientifically protected, more needed to be done to stop the scale of pollution along the shore in Portaferry.
“Portaferry is meant to be a marine conservation zone, it’s meant to be an area of protection for wildlife and it’s a Ramsar site for birds. Yet the council and organisations aren’t fulfilling the duties of those.
“A Ramsar site is an international promise, not just at a UK level, to protect the birds on our shores like Brent geese.”
“When people come down and see that rubbish they don’t care and they will litter more, so it’s a massive problem. We need more bins and the council and environment agencies need to actually facilitate beach cleaning,” she added.
“I’m not saying that local people should be having to do this, but I would like to see the council work out where they can help assist and promote more beach cleaning and
do something to tackle companies who discard their netting, tackle and ropes as well as fishing traps into the sea.”
