Welsh Water accused of allowing sewage to enter natural rivers
The Water company says the majority of pollution found in the Cleddau comes from rural land use rather than directly dumping into the water
Last updated 7th Nov 2024
Welsh Water has been accused of allowing sewage to enter the natural rivers in Haverfordwest.
The water company says the majority of pollution found in the Cleddau comes from rural land use rather than directly dumping into the water.
Simon Walters from the Cleddau Project has told us this isn't the first time this has happened.
"When this first kicked off, two or maybe three years ago, it was like a light switch was turned off"
"In a specific area of the estuary, everything that could run, swim or fly disappeared."
"This particular issue is 100% sewage. It has nothing to do with agriculture."
"Yes, there is an ongoing problem but this particular incident is nothing to do with it."
"This has been ongoing for eighteen months and it was totally Welsh Water."
The water quality of rivers in Wales is monitored by Natural Resources Wales (NRW). There is concern about the river water quality in parts of the Cleddau as they are not all meeting environmental targets set to protect them.
This means that there are too many nutrients in the river such as ‘phosphorous’ which can cause algal blooms which can affect the amount of oxygen available in the water and harm wildlife.
Data from Welsh Water looked at where the phosphorus int he river was coming from.
Within the Western Cleddau, the orthophosphate source total load from Welsh Water was 22%, the largest contributor was rural land use at 65%.
A Welsh Water spokesperson said:
"We know our performance has fallen short of expectations on this occasion and for that we apologise." Welsh Water.
"We have been working with the Cleddau Project, a citizen science group we help to fund, as well as share data and information with as part of our commitment to being transparent about our performance."
"Some of our assets need flow monitors and we are working to get installations complete by deadlines stated by our regulators. For Picton SPS, a flow monitor needed to be installed by 2025. We were able to install a monitor several years before this deadline, which gave us insight into its performance earlier than our regulators required."
"We were able to assess its flow, identifying the cause of the underperformance, which was the control of the pumps. To fix this a bespoke control panel was needed, which had a 26-week manufacturing lead time due to its specialist nature."
"Work to install the new control panel started in December 2023, and it was operational in January."
"We expect the SPS to be compliant with its flow permit for 2024."