Peel Marina silt to be used to seal off old mine

The Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture (DEFA) has won an appeal to use treated silt dredged from Peel Marina to seal an exposed former mining site.

Land around the former mine at Cross Vein, above Foxdale, has been closed to the public over concerns about historic waste material.

Under the government scheme, sediment dredged from the marina, to allow boats in and out of the harbour, would be mixed with cement then spread over the mining site to seal the waste.

Planning inspector Jennifer Vyse rejected initial objections from the planning committee about transportation and heavy traffic, saying the need to deal with Cross Vein's contamination was "of overriding national importance".

Peel Marina needs regular dredging to stay deep enough for boats to travel in and out.

The sediment that is removed is contaminated with heavy metals, mainly lead, largely traced back to old mining in the area, including the Cross Vein mine.

That contamination means it is too dangerous to dump the silt out at sea, so it has been sitting in temporary lagoons in Peel since the marina was previously dredged in 2020 and 2021. Those lagoons are now full.

Under the DEFA scheme, the dredged sediment from Peel Marina would be mixed with cement to lock the heavy metals in place, then spread over the old mine site as a sealing layer.

Currently, Cross Vein mine is an exposed area of mining waste. During wet weather, rain washes the contamination down into the river system, which causes the initial sediment build-up in Peel.

Fifteen conditions are attached to the new scheme, including new ecological surveys and water monitoring.

The Planning Committee had initially rejected the scheme, on a split vote, mainly over concerns about traffic.

Some 16,000 cubic metres of treated sediment would need to be moved from the temporary lagoons in Peel to the mining site - about 60 lorry round-trips a day.

In addition, thousands more cubic metres of topsoil would have to be transported between the two sites, following the sealing with the sediment, in order to landscape the former mining area back into heathland.

But Vyse rejected the earlier objections, stressing the need to deal with Cross Vein's contamination was "a consideration of overriding national importance, for which there is no reasonable and acceptable alternative".

Haulage is expected to run from August to October 2027, with work finished by March 2028.

However, since the land at Cross Vein is not owned by DEFA, the department does not have the right to access the site, meaning agreement would still need to be sought from those who hold rights over the land before the scheme can begin.

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