Pollution in Cumbria

There has been much recent concern about the effects of pollution on the environment and inhabitants of Cumbria: the Lake District has been identified as an area at risk from 'acid rain'; the west coast of Cumbria is nationally known for elevated levels of radioactive wastes; tourists are damaging the fabric of the remote areas they come to enjoy; some of the lakes receive large loads of effluents; the list is a large and growing one. In 1985, the Merlewood Research Station of the Institute of Terrestrial Ecology hosted a meeting at Grange-over-Sands, and invited specialist speakers to address a general audience on aspects of pollution problems facing Cumbria. The speakers were chosen to provide views of pollution in Cumbria from several viewpoints, with the expectation that much of the available evidence and data would be presented. The audience contained local people, councillors, industrialists and environmentalists, and anyone with an interest in the environment in Cumbria was welcomed. The evidence presented at that meeting is published here, and we are grateful to the authors for their contributions. However, the Natural Environment Research Council, of which ITE is a component institute, cannot accept responsibility for the views expressed in this volume; they are solely those of the authors, and in publishing them ITE is simply providing a forum for those views to be expressed. An assessment of the extent of the problems is left to the reader, and I hope that this volume will prove to be informative and, above all, thought-provoking.