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32-501: Today the area is in the final stages of regeneration. Modern Industrial units and housing has replaced the pollution of the metallurgical industry and the area is now the home of Championship football club Swansea City A.F.C. and Welsh Rugby Union region Ospreys. Railway lines which criss-crossed the valley have now been replaced by pleasant walking and cycling paths and the River Tawe now hosts canoeists instead of copper barges. Over

64-536: A large lake in the course of the Nant y Fendrod designed to help mitigate the concentrations of metals in the water. The lake itself is lined with limestone . Nearly all the old buildings were cleared, with only a very few of historic interest being preserved. 51°40′32″N 3°54′57″W  /  51.67559°N 3.91592°W  / 51.67559; -3.91592 River Tawe The River Tawe ( / ˈ t aʊ i / ; Welsh : Afon Tawe [ˈtau.ɛ] )

96-422: A number of initiatives to better connect the urban areas on the west of the river with the more rural areas of Kilvey Hill and Crymlyn Bog beyond to the east. 51°37′N 3°56′W  /  51.617°N 3.933°W  / 51.617; -3.933 Pollutant A pollutant or novel entity is a substance or energy introduced into the environment that has undesired effects, or adversely affects

128-540: A period of about 150 years up until the 1920s, the open valley of the River Tawe became one of the most heavily industrialised areas of the developed world . There were a number of reasons that favoured the great expansion of industry in this particular location. The general exploitation of coal in the South Wales coalfield of the South Wales valleys had revealed seams of steam coal and anthracite close to

160-477: A pottery in 1764.) In 1737, the White Rock copper works at Pentrechwyth was established. By 1780 there were three copper works on the east bank of the river: White Rock, Middle and Upper Bank. On the west bank there was also one at Forest. By 1800 nine copper smelters were in production in the valley. By 1860 the lower Swansea valley was smelting two thirds of the copper ores imported to Britain, and changes in

192-637: Is a 30 miles (48 km) long river in South Wales . Its headwaters flow initially east from its source below Llyn y Fan Fawr south of Moel Feity in the Black Mountains , the westernmost range of the Brecon Beacons National Park , before the river turns south and then southwest to its estuary at Swansea . Its main tributaries are the right bank Upper and Lower Clydach Rivers and the Afon Twrch . The total area of

224-440: Is an international legally binding agreement for the control of persistent organic pollutants. Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR) are systems to collect and disseminate information on environmental releases and transfers of toxic chemicals from industrial and other facilities. The European Pollutant Emission Register is a type of PRTR providing access to information on the annual emissions of industrial facilities in

256-470: Is called “ assimilative capacity (or absorptive capacity); a pollutant actually causes pollution when the assimilative capacity is exceeded. Pollutants, towards which the environment has low absorptive capacity are called stock pollutants . Examples include persistent organic pollutants like PCBs , non- biodegradable plastics and heavy metals . Stock pollutants accumulate in the environment over time. The damage they cause increases as more pollutant

288-513: Is continually synthesizing new chemicals, the regulation of which requires evaluation of the potential danger for human health and the environment . Risk assessment is nowadays considered essential for making these decisions on a scientifically sound basis. Measures or defined limits include: Pollutants can cross international borders and therefore international regulations are needed for their control. The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants , which entered into force in 2004,

320-421: Is emitted, and persists as the pollutant accumulates. Stock pollutants can create a burden for the future generations , bypassing on the damage that persists well after the benefits received from incurring that damage, have been forgotten. Scientists have officially deemed that the planetary boundaries safe chemical pollutant levels (novel entities) have been surpassed. In contrast to stock pollutants, for which

352-460: Is extended as far as requiring permission and payment for bridges which are built over it. This was last exercised in 2008 when Swansea Council was required to pay £281,431 to the estate, as revealed by a Freedom of Information request. The lower part of the valley was intensely industrialised in the 18th and 19th centuries and was especially impacted by metal refining and working and to a much lesser extent by porcelain manufacture. Large areas of

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384-724: The Clean Water Act , EPA promulgated national standards for municipal sewage treatment plants, also called publicly owned treatment works , in the Secondary Treatment Regulation. National standards for industrial dischargers are called Effluent guidelines (for existing sources) and New Source Performance Standards , and currently cover over 50 industrial categories. In addition, the Act requires states to publish water quality standards for individual water bodies to provide additional protection where

416-630: The West Country ); the alum industry (based on pyrites found with coal); and the manufacture of fire-clay, which was used to line furnaces . The first copper smelter directly associated was established at Landore in 1717 by John Lane and John Pollard. Pollard later went on to build the Llangyfelach copper works. In 1720 the Cambrian Works was set up near the mouth of the river and continued in production until 1745. (It reopened as

448-625: The nickel carbonyl process . The Lower Swansea Valley Project began in the early 1960s with the aim of seeking to reclaim the land . Over the next twenty years the entire community of the area became involved in restoring the land. Redevelopment of the area provided the South Dock and Maritime Quarter and the Liberty Stadium sports complex together with the Swansea Enterprise Park industrial park which included

480-533: The 1980s when all the industry had long since disappeared the Nant y Fendrod was still very seriously contaminated by copper, iron, nickel, ammonia and many other contaminants. The only remaining working industry that can trace its roots back to the industrialisation of the Lower Swansea valley is the INCO nickel factory at Clydach known locally as The Mond . Here nickel continues (2007) to be refined using

512-967: The Member States of the European Union , as well as Norway. Clean Air Act standards. Under the Clean Air Act , the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) are developed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for six common air pollutants, also called "criteria pollutants": particulates ; smog and ground-level ozone ; carbon monoxide ; sulfur oxides ; nitrogen oxides ; and lead . The National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants are additional emission standards that are set by EPA for toxic air pollutants. Clean Water Act standards. Under

544-550: The area that is damaged by a pollutant. Local pollutants cause damage near the emission source. Regional pollutants cause damage further from the emission source. The vertical zone refers to whether the damage is ground-level or atmospheric. Surface pollutants cause damage by accumulating near the Earth's surface. Global pollutants cause damage by concentrating on the [atmosphere]. Measures of pollutant concentration are used to determine risk assessment in public health . Industry

576-647: The catchment is some 246 km (95 sq mi). The Tawe passes through a number of towns and villages including Ystradgynlais , Ystalyfera , Pontardawe , and Clydach and meets the sea at Swansea Bay below Swansea. The Tawe Valley ( Cwm Tawe in Welsh ) is more commonly known as the Swansea Valley . Ownership of the riverbed was granted to the Duke of Beaufort in the 17th century by Charles II resulting in exclusive mineral and fishing rights, which

608-500: The environment has low absorptive capacity, fund pollutants are those for which the environment has a moderate absorptive capacity. Fund pollutants do not cause damage to the environment unless the emission rate exceeds the receiving environment's absorptive capacity (e.g. carbon dioxide, which is absorbed by plants and oceans). Fund pollutants are not destroyed, but rather converted into less harmful substances, or diluted/dispersed to non-harmful concentrations. Many pollutants are within

640-544: The environment. When analyzed from a planetary boundaries perspective, human society has released novel entities that well exceed safe levels. Pollutants can be categorized in a variety of different ways. For example, it is sometimes useful to distinguish between stock pollutants and fund pollutants . Another way is to group them together according to more specific properties, such as organic, particulate, pharmaceutical, et cetera. The environment has some capacity to absorb many discharges without measurable harm, and this

672-432: The following notable groups: Light pollution is the impact that anthropogenic light has on the visibility of the night sky. It also encompasses ecological light pollution which describes the effect of artificial light on individual organisms and on the structure of ecosystems as a whole. Pollutants can also be defined by their zones of influence, both horizontally and vertically. The horizontal zone refers to

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704-449: The growth rate of plant or animal species, or by interfering with resources used by humans, human health or wellbeing, or property values. Some pollutants are biodegradable and therefore will not persist in the environment in the long term. However, the degradation products of some pollutants are themselves polluting such as the products DDE and DDD produced from the degradation of DDT . Pollution has widespread negative impacts on

736-558: The industrial processes. Initially, the smelting works concentrated on copper. Coal was brought down to them by waggonways and tramways ; copper ore was brought on ships which could sail right up to the works; and the resulting copper was exported out again the same way. Swansea became known as Copperopolis and the lower Tawe valley became a mass of industry. In the wake of the copper and coal industry followed pottery -making (another industry which requires large amounts of coal, together with clay and flint, which could be shipped in from

768-465: The lower valley remain contaminated by industrial spoil containing copper , lead , nickel and zinc . The only significant extant relic of those times is a major nickel refinery at Clydach which is part of the Canadian company Vale Inco . The quality of the river has now greatly improved. Large salmon swim up the river to spawn , whilst trout are in abundance. In 1992, a barrage was built at

800-606: The mouth of the river. National Cycle Route 43 follows this river for much of its course. Bridges over the River Tawe within the City and County of Swansea , from north to south: There are plans for further housing developments on both east and west banks of the River Tawe and a proposal to operate river taxis along the river. A report was commissioned by Natural Resources Wales in 2015 as part of its 'Tawe Trial' initiative - completed by regeneration consultants Trilein Ltd. it recommended

832-433: The newly developing industry. Swansea was already a town of significant size which could provide the required workforce. The growth of the industry in the Lower Swansea valley itself caused a great expansion in the population of Swansea and nearby Neath . A number of wealthy entrepreneurs , scientists and engineers of considerable ability were drawn to Swansea during this period, which in turn, promoted great innovation in

864-545: The ore to Swansea's coal than take the coal to the ore. In addition, the very high tidal ranges at Swansea allowed deep draught ships to access the river mouth. This allowed large quantities of raw materials to be brought in (allowing further profit through economies of scale) and, more importantly, the finished products, such as sheet copper, tinplate , alum , porcelain and coal to be exported. The technologies involved in iron making had already been developed and refined, and skilled craftsmen were readily available to extend

896-502: The output and economy of the Swansea valley had a significant effect on global copper prices . The extent and scale of the industrialisation that took place at a time when there almost no environmental controls in place created a legacy of chronic contamination of land and water by a great range of toxic and dangerous pollutants . The River Tawe was already being polluted by the coal mining industry and suffered badly. Even worse affected

928-495: The surface in the Upper Swansea valley and these were easily exploited by shallow drift mining or open cast mining . Smelting metals required more than three parts of coal to every one part of metal ore, so it was of major economic benefit to have easily available, high quality coal . Swansea also had a good port and safe anchorage. The combination of these two factors meant that it was financially more viable to bring

960-471: The time of the boom in industrial production show a thick smog over the valleys and the nearby towns and it reasonable to suppose that air quality was very poor both in the valley floor and in the nearby residential areas. A local doctor, Thomas Williams, wrote a book called The Effects of the Copper-Smoke in 1854. He described the landscape, atmosphere, and the complaints of local farmers. Even in

992-420: The usefulness of a resource. These can be both naturally forming (i.e. minerals or extracted compounds like oil ) or anthropogenic in origin (i.e. manufactured materials or byproducts ). Pollutants result in environmental pollution or become public health concerns when they reach a concentration high enough to have significant negative impacts. A pollutant may cause long- or short-term damage by changing

Lower Swansea valley - Misplaced Pages Continue

1024-490: Was the stream that meandered through the lower half of the valley, the Nant y Fendrod. Records about the history of this stream are sparse but it appears likely that for over 100 years most of the water was taken from this stream to be used in industry and its channel became the repository of much of the liquid waste from the various industries. In addition rainfall seeping through the growing waste tips added further burdens of by-products and waste materials. Lithographs made at

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