Designated shellfish waters in Scotland
The Scottish Government issued a revised list
of 78 coastal areas designated as ‘shellfish waters’ in July
2009. The revised list included some new sites and excluded
some previously designated sites. The sites were designated under
the European Community Shellfish Waters Directive
(2006/113/EEC)1. These waters require protection to
ensure the quality and productivity of shellfish, such as mussels
and oysters, and must meet the minimum environmental quality
standards as laid out in the directive.
In 2010 all of Scotland’s shellfish waters
complied with the minimum environmental quality standards. However,
member states must also work towards achieving guideline quality
standards which are more stringent than the minimum standards. In
2010 about 69% of shellfish waters met the guideline standards.
Discharges of sewage effluent to designated
shellfish waters require additional treatment to meet
bacteriological standards to ensure that the quality of edible
shellfish does not pose a threat to human health. The Food
Standards Agency classification results for 2011/2012 show that
around 49% of identified shellfish harvesting waters2
currently provide Class A products all year round. This is the
highest quality standard; only shellfish harvested from Class A
waters are permitted to go straight on to the market without the
requirement for further cleaning or ‘depuration.’ A further 42% of
harvesting waters provide Class A products for part of the year and
Class B products for the remainder of the year. Class B products
require some additional cleaning before they are allowed to be
marketed.
In response to the requirements of the
Shellfish Waters Directive SEPA has developed Pollution Reduction
Plans for designated shellfish waters in Scotland. The plans are
available on these pages and define a series of actions specific to
each designated shellfish water, which will be undertaken to ensure
protection and compliance with the Directive (please note that
plans for the 78 designated sites currently include data up to the
end of 2010, where as plans for the sites that were de-designated
in 2009 only include data up to the end of 2007).
Additional information regarding the Shellfish
Waters Directive can be found on our regulation webpage.
- The revised list resulted in a reduction in
the total number of sites from 108 to 78, but also included 4 new
sites. SEPA started to monitor these new sites in 2010.
- Shellfish harvesting areas are identified
under the terms of the Shellfish Hygiene Directive (91/492/EEC),
which is administered in Scotland by the Food Standards Agency.
Harvesting areas often lie within the designated waters that are
monitored by SEPA, but this is not always the case.