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Volume Five - The Age of Decline & Crass Stupidity - Some comments and a final rant! . . .

I feel I must comment upon the leachate issue. When the household and industrial waste was being dumped commencing 1971, the dock was partially empty or even tidal. No one knows the content of the site since there were no significant environmental controls in place at that time to monitor what was being tipped and to ensure that potentially toxic materials were disposed of in a manner which was safe for the human and wildlife population and the adjacent marine environment(s).

Then the Penarth marina was built which meant that the water on the eastern side of the dam was now significantly higher and remained at a constant level. On the northern side we had the tidal estuary of the river Ely flowing into the Severn Sea together with the river Taff, via the Penarth Flats. It was the habitat of numerous wading birds since when the tide receded it lay open many acres of mud flats and the wriggly bird food that goes with it. The barrage ensured that the entire bay was no longer tidal but at constant high water level and the visiting birds visit no more – but then that’s progress!

In simple engineering terms the barrage is a dam which serves to retain waters at near constant level and is thus, no less than, a settlement pond for the waters and pollutants of the former industrial rivers Taff and Ely.

The Cardiff Bay Barrage Act 1993 [116] (section 8.2) requires that the dissolved oxygen concentration within Harbour Authority controlled inland waters is maintained at or above 5 mg/litre in all places and at all times. To achieve this they now have to aerate the waters using compressed air blown into the bay at 800 locations. Prior to the barrage, the rivers of the Taff and Ely were flushed by the tide twice a day. The image shows oxygen being pumped into the River Ely nearby the Tesco supermarket roundabout.
 

The question is therefore, is the leachate from the old dock and from other local extensive landfill sites, coupled with pollutants brought down by the Taff and Ely rivers a significant contributory factor for the need for aeration of the settlement pond they call Cardiff Bay?

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