Taff Fechan Flood Risk

[Stuart France]

Natural Resources Wales (NRW) the environment quango in Wales has just given notice to Cave Rescue only it seems at 6pm tonight of a new flood risk due to Welsh Water plant breakdown. I have marked the river in question with a red arrow on NRW's map attached. Their email reads as follows:

"Nice to speak to you. As discussed, I just want to make you aware that
following a failure at Ponsticill Water Treatment Works, Welsh Water will
be discharging water into the Taf Fechan (upper Taff catchment) over the
next 3 days.

This is authorised as per their permit with us, but as it's a relatively
new permit, I'm not sure if lines of communication have been set up yet.
I'm also not sure whether this affects you at all but wanted to send you
some information just in case.

Further detail below:

*Due to a water quality failure at Pontsticill Water Treatment Works, Welsh
Water are expected to be discharging dechlorinated water to the Taf
Fechan. *

*TOTAL volume to be drained 5400m3 over a 72hour period.*

*62.5 l/sec for 8-hour periods Friday, Saturday and Sunday 28, 29th,30th
October respectively. *

Please get in touch if you have any questions.

*Hannah Goddard MCIWEM *

0300 065 3211 / 07341 782026"

 

[andrewmcleod]

Sounds like it's not really NRW's job but rather Dŵr Cymru's job but they haven't done it... nice of them to double-check someone got informed, really!

 

[Stuart France]

We don't have much of a relationship with Welsh Water following them closing explorer access to Ogof Carno via Carno Adit a few years back when they realised "they owned a big cave" as a result of the adit entrance having to be moved due to the A465 dual carriageway project grabbing land. Welsh Water owns land above Dan-yr-Ogof too but it is managed by the Nat Park on their behalf, so again they're a bit distanced.

In my experience, WW is not a bad company, their employees are the trying-to-be-helpful kind, but they can go over the top on health and safety after some, shall we say, serious incidents.

NRW is responsible for river welfare in Wales as it incorporates the former Environment Agency Wales. I can't comment further, at least not here!

Yes you would expect NRW to know about the Cambrian Caving Council since it is a member of NRW's National Access Forum and to understand that cave rescue isn't the right way to inform en bloc the caving clubs and individual cavers who have an interest in Wales. Cave rescue deals with active incidents rather than acting to prevent them. Hey ho. I'll give the lady a call.

 

[mikem]

Apart from the water quality, I don't think that it's something we need to worry about:

River Level at Taff at Merthyr Tydfil

We publish the information about river levels so people living in flood risk areas are better informed and can decide what actions to take as the water levels change. Anglers and boaters will also be able to use this information to check the water levels before they set off.

rivers-and-seas.naturalresources.wales

 

[Stuart France]

The NRW quote in the post above is part of a longer disclaimer by NRW that its river monitoring equipment is not always functional or its results are sometimes unreliable, so the public are advised not to take anything they read completely at face value and always to use their common sense.

I think this scepticism should also apply to Mike's suggestion that river levels are something cavers need not worry themselves about and all that cavers need factor is the quality of the drinking water as they go under the waves...

 

[mikem]

I'm not suggesting we shouldn't take warnings seriously, I'm saying that this particular release (from a water treatment plant, not the reservoir) isn't actually that much - I have confirmation from friends who live by the river - taff fechan usual minimum is 0.2 cumecs, they are adding 0.06...

 

[mikem]

which is only 3% increase when it regularly carries 1000% more!

 

[Stuart France]

Well you could say that NRW was erring on side of caution, but they did take the trouble to publicise this incident in their own way, so we'd best not encourage them to do otherwise or risk having a cry-wolf situation sometime.

People should take note of river levels and recent rainfall. October has been a fairly wet month after everyone snoozed off during a record long hot dry summer. Nothing dramatic recently, no flooded streets, no storm damage, but nevertheless wet, wet, wet.

We were in Craig a Ffynnon last weekend and there was foam on the roof of Gasoline Alley and the 1st choke waterfall was a gusher. The stream dropped about 4 inches while we were in there, but had it move the other way then getting out might have been 'interesting' - but more rain had not been forecast. This weekend's caving activity makes it obvious that the ground is now saturated after the dry summer so any new rain percolates straight through and there is a lot more water on the move generally.

You have been warned!