Natural Resources Wales speaks out over 'sewage' at Borth

Residents at the Mid Wales beach have raised concerns about a brown plume that appeared at the beach over the weekend which many have suspected to be sewage.

There are also reports that people who have swum in the plume have since become violently sick.

One local resident said: “This is human s**t dumped in Aberystwyth making its way up Cardigan bay across the water in Borth - this mismanagement needs to stop.”

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Natural Resources Wales however have claimed that the brown plume is sediment after heavy rainfall over the weekend.

Huwel Manley, NRW Duty Tactical Manager for South West Wales, said: “We received one report of discoloured water in the sea at Borth over the weekend. One of our officers investigated and found that some discoloured water was entering the sea at Aberystwyth Harbour, but the discolouration was passing.

“It is our understanding that there were no discharges from storm overflow discharges over the weekend associated with Dŵr Cymru assets.

“The brown discolouration was most likely caused by heavy rainfall in the Rheidol and Ystwyth catchments which resulted in increasing water levels early Sunday morning causing sediment to be pushed out into the bay.

 “We issued pollution risk warnings for Aberystwyth South Beach over the weekend due to the risk of reduced water quality from heavy rain. The pollution risk warning has now passed, and there is no reason to suspect that water quality is lower than usual.

“We are confident that the discolouration was caused by sediment flowing from rivers and not through sewage discharges. Both Borth and Aberystwyth South Beach are excellent places to enjoy the seaside and have been rated as excellent for a number of years.”

The Conservative Party in Wales in have been critical of the incident and said it was a sign of Labour’s failure with sewage treatment.

This is despite the Conservative Party being criticised for their poor record of water safety in England – including one area in Devon last month having a parasite in the water supply that caused an outbreak of stomach infections.

Aberconwy’s Conservative Senedd member Janet E Finch-Saunders said: “This is deeply concerning, NRW and Labour must conduct a full investigation immediately. Wales has four times as many sewage discharges proportionately in Labour run Wales than in England.

“The UK Conservative Government are holding water companies to task by subjecting polluters to unlimited penalties, while Labour let dumping to continue without consequence in Wales.

“The Welsh Conservatives have long called for Labour and NRW to hold water firms to account and issue penalty fines. By allowing Dŵr Cymru to continue dumping unchecked, they are enabling the polluting of our waterways.”