Surfers gather in UK for anti-pollution festival
Date: 02-Sep-02
Country: UK
Author: Pete Harrison
The annual fancy dress ball of the pressure group Surfers Against Sewage (SAS) has become a pilgrimage for cognoscenti among Britain's 250,000 surfers, with a serious eco-message underlying the loud music and mayhem.
This year's fancy dress theme was "Enchanted Forest".
SAS was set up 12 years ago to protect surfers, swimmers, boaters and beachcombers from the mass of toilet waste washed up on Britain's 2,500-km (1,500-mile) coastline each year.
"If something nasty is being discharged into the water, an unsuspecting water user is very likely to be the first recipient," SAS spokeswoman Vicky Garner told Reuters last week.
SAS's protests - in wetsuits and gasmasks, accompanied by a giant inflatable piece of excrement - drew attention to the inadequate processing of sewage by a nation that once prided itself on its seafaring tradition and miles of clean beaches.
Over the last 12 years, the amount of raw sewage entering British waters has fallen from 400 million gallons per day to virtually nil, the result of a massive cleanup driven by European Union demands and the tourist industry, helped by pressure groups such as SAS.
"Anecdotes of surfers diving through waves and resurfacing wearing panty-liners, nappies or condoms are thankfully becoming less frequent," said Garner. "The fight against sewage has largely been won."
So SAS is now taking its fight to other sewage-washed shores, and putting chemical and radioactive pollution of the seas high on the agenda.
"We're using our experience to make the change happen around the globe," said Garner. "We're working with people on the Continent, in Australia, New Zealand, Puerto Rico and the United States."
In the little Cornish town of St Agnes, a mecca for surfers at the southwestern tip of England, the tourist industry has benefited handsomely from the 12-year campaign for a cleanup.
Britain is getting more European Blue Flag awards for bathing water quality each year. As beaches grow cleaner, the three billion pound ($4.66 billion) a year watersports industry has boomed.
More than two million Britons regularly take to the sea to sail, ski, surf or dive, says the Royal Yachting Association, and this provides jobs for at least 26,000 people.
SAS is now worried about recent research that found cancer rates five times the national average in the West Country coastal town of Burnham-on-Sea, just five miles from Hinkley Point nuclear power station.
More than half of those diagnosed with cancer had hobbies involving the sea or the beach, said the survey by anti-nuclear campaigners.
"This is a major concern for water users," said Garner. "They are like the litmus paper of society."
