Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners have been dealing with a red ‘slick’ off the coast of Whitehaven with further tests needed.

The Harbour Commissioners and partners started investigating a red ‘slick’ off the coast of Whitehaven, on Wednesday, June 24, after reports were received of the unidentified substance appearing around the sea around the harbour.

A spokesperson for Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners said: “Early assessments by experts, quickly followed by initial sample analysis, appear to have ruled out oil and iron ochre.

“We’ve also been told the behaviour with cooler and warmer areas of water seems to support it being organic in origin.

“And we’ll certainly be watching tonight to see if the water does indeed glow blue, as it’s been suggested it might.”

A member of the Harbour Commissioners went down and the water did glow blue.

They went on to explain why the response is has been as it has adding: “As a Statutory Harbour Authority when there is any report of a possible ‘pollution’ incident we have a formal contingency plan that has to be activated, regardless of whether or not we believe it’s nothing to worry about.

“Our Incident Command then liaises closely with the relevant agencies, authorities and regulators, and we take our lead from them, however circumstances dictate.

“Even if most people assume it’s a natural phenomenon, until we’re officially stood down we remain on pollution response and continue to act accordingly.”

They also addressed the comments on the social media updates saying: “We know that most of our followers appreciate we’re a small team who work hard and do whatever is humanly possible to look after our harbour.

“Sadly there are hurtful people out there too.

“All of us live locally, many of our staff team were born in the area, and we also have a number of volunteers who support us in their own time, so we take it personally when we’re labelled ignorant or stupid or not capable of doing our jobs or sometimes even worse

“Most people do mean well but occasionally the comments make for painful reading.

“Thankfully we’ve got mainly thick skin, we’ll pick each other up and we’ll be back at it tomorrow, as always, ready to face another public beating.”