Wednesday, 14 March 2007
WAG Decision could be Dredge as usual.
We are waiting for the Welsh Assembly to decide on the critical future of dredging in the Bristol Channel. The decision will come after their local elections in May. A recent letter from them reads as though business as usual will be declared on dredging aggregates. Follow the comments to read the letters.
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9 comments:
I swam at various Gower beaches nearly every day as a child, 20+ years ago with sand eel shoals everywhere.
When I walk to the same beaches over the last few years the sand has gone and huge rocks have been revealed.
I spend nearly every day in or on the water at Oxwich Bay, the sand eels have gone, the cockle beds are thin - less sand and less cockles. Last Sunday Clams were strewn across the beach torn from their unsheltered beds, which should be 18 inches deep. On Monday Pobbles was a lunar landscape with a 1-metre decrease in sand. I've never seen this before. As a sailing and powerboat instructor I understand the seasonal weather changes and tidal flows more than most, I cannot teach sailing and launch boats on rocky beaches - it's dangerous.
Something is taking our beaches, I've taken some sand, natural phenomena have taken some, and the open cast sand dredgers have taken 100M T. If we stop dredging today sand will still relocate from beaches to backfill the sand banks, which protect our beaches, possibly for years to come. Think of the egg timer and use this as an analogy to imagine future sand erosion.
I understand the implications to the dredging jobs, construction industry and bank rolls. We need to dredge our shipping channels but exporting our sand for huge profits not returned to the local economy is a finite rape of our most beautiful natural resource. In parts of Europe sand dredging is banned up to 25K offshore so they import it from Wales. Tourism employs 30K people in this area, fishing is huge and its on the up - we will ruin this forever - this is sand formed in the last ice age which our children and visitors will never enjoy at its best. With storm surges and global warming a reality our sand banks will have to work harder to reduce the Atlantic swells and storms forecast to protect our coastline, the banks will use what is left on the beach to protect the bays.
We have to provide evidence to halt this, the dredging companies use expensive lasers, sonar's and employees to produce their biased arguments. Dredging owners have also owned tobacco companies, they are well used to pulling the wool over our eyes.
We can produce masses of scientists and public anecdotal evidence to prove the opposite. Why should we fight to protect our beaches - the dredgers should be fighting us to take them. The Welsh Assembly needs to action this today, the environmental issue is in the limelight more and more and the politicians discuss it more and more. We need definite action today. Please put pen to paper to Rhodri Morgan, please internet surf the Gower SOS website and blog, visit the Euphoria Sailing and Mumbles Matters blogs on this issue, just leave an electronic protest, it's a permanent record of your support. Spend time gaining an opinion and then time acting on it. Sand costs only £30 a ton delivered locally, without tourism property prices will drop, the sand will run out, what will construction do then. It's economically viable to get sand elsewhere, it's happened with coal and now natural Gas.
What would we say if we drove to work each day, passing Aberavon Beach, Swansea Bay or Port Eynon watching the sand being dug off the beach with huge tractors. It's happening covertly with huge ships sucking the life and livelihood from our South Wales coast.
Thank you
Peter Letheren
Dear Mr Letheren
Thank you for your letter of 24 January to the First Minister, about the Gower beaches. I have been asked to reply.
I note your concern about the condition of the beaches on the Gower peninsula, and I am aware of their importance to the economy of Wales, in terms of their tourism and recreational uses, as well as their aesthetic appeal.
A great deal of research into the sediment environments of the Bristol Channel has been undertaken in recent years, and studies have shown great seasonal variations in the levels of sand on the beaches, with depletion in the winter and re-deposition in the summer months. Certain storm directions do have immediate and obvious impacts on the beaches, but monitoring, to date, does show recovery.
Unlike dredging in English waters off the South East coast, virtually none of the marine dredged sand extracted from the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary in Welsh waters is exported, but used for the construction industry in South Wales.
Aggregates are the basic constituents used in construction and, at the moment, are crucial to society’s well-being. Fine aggregates can be provided from a number of sources, none of which are without some amenity and environmental consequences.
The pattern of supply of sand and gravel for construction purposes in South East Wales is unique in the UK because of its current and historic dependence on marine dredged resources. Applications for licences to dredge sand are subject to long and careful scrutiny, and to inform its role in the granting of Government Views on dredging licence applications, the Welsh Assembly published its Interim Marine Aggregates Dredging Policy (IMADP) in November 2004.
In the IMADP, the Assembly recognises the need for dredging to cause as little environmental effect as possible, and so divides the Channel into areas of varying degree of risk, to direct dredgers away from potentially sensitive locations. The policy was based on extensive research conducted on behalf of the Assembly by independent bodies. Continuing independent assessment of the Gower beaches has been undertaken by the University of Glamorgan, and has improved our understanding of the patterns of redistribution of sand along the beaches, and between the beaches and the sand immediately offshore.
The work in relation to Helwick Bank is being actively pursued, and a Government View will be issued at the earliest opportunity consistent with proper consideration of all the issues.
Yours sincerely
Linda Scott (Mrs)
Environmental Planning
To Nigel Thomas, Linda Scott, Rhodri Morgan.
Many thanks for your reply, dated 13th Feb 2007 in response to my initial e-mail dated and sent to Rhodri Morgan and copied to numerous Assembly members on the 24th January 2007. I did not receive it however until 6 March 2007 and it is my understanding that a response is normally guaranteed within 17 days from the Assembly?
Because our sand has historically been taken from the Bristol Channel it is not a precursor to continue, most other areas of the UK have to source sand from the land or elsewhere. You do not suggest or provide evidence of having explored alternative sources of sand and appear reticent to allocate the proper resources to investigate the consequences.
I believe Derwen Construction have started an aggregate grading and washing facility at Neath Abbey Wharf, they list the majority of their raw material as coming from greenfield excavations and rock over burden , which makes sense. A considerable number of inland sites have been proposed to you which could be used for sand and gravel extraction and subsequently could be used as a recreational water resource. Please ask Corus or Tata Steel to quote for the bulk import of sand via Port Talbot, they could become a huge UK importer solving many environmental sand issues nationwide and creating more revenue for Wales.
In the letter received from Linda Scott (Mrs) Environmental Planning she quoted "Aggregates are the basic constituents used in construction and, at the moment, are crucial to society's well-being." ( See attached). Using our inshore sand for building aggregate is extremely short sighted for the coastal South Wales economy , which forms a huge percentage of the Welsh voting population and Welsh revenue. Our beaches and my growth business type help create society's well being, encourage development, boost property prices, economic viability and ultimately boost the construction industry. However I am left to fight this issue, which has a detrimental effect on my business in time spent and creates negative vibrations through out the tourism industry to protect our medium term strategy. If you vote to continue dredging inshore I will be forced to invest elsewhere to maintain my business longer term.
All the attached 2007 images of sand erosion and its effects have never been seen on our beaches before, so far I have been unable to locate anyone who knows what the man made wooden struts currently sticking out of Oxwich Beach are. Oxwich beach has just been named the most beautiful in the UK by travel writers who visited more than 1,000 around the world in search of the perfect sands. BBC news Link. I have taken sand home between my toes and in my pockets, the dredging companies have taken hundreds of millions of Tons. Your argument states that it will come back, please explain how in light of my photographic evidence and 25 years of adult memories? Some are blaming other environmental issues, global warming , winter storms and rising sea levels for our loss of sand, perhaps therefore we can play one environmental issue off against another to carry on as normal ?
Sand is valuable to South and West Wales and like gold its worth keeping long term, the WAG need to find a solution! In business you have to work hard to increase value, there is no other way. In current politics it appears you just have to wait in order to blame somebody else. The wooden stumps may well cover over but the overall sand levels have reduced year on year.
The WAG must see reason and the cautionary principle must be applied, a prolonged cessation of the inshore dredging of aggregates must happen now. Proper WAG and Environment Agency surveys must be carried out to prove that beach levels are reasonably recovering before aggregate dredging is allowed within our inshore waters.
Attached is part of our non scientific but acceptable evidence of recent serious sand erosion from our beaches, this was caused by recent years of dredging and exposed in one severe winter.
Peter Letheren
Euphoria Sailing Ltd.
Dear Mr Letheren
In reply to your email of 7 March, I would make the following points:
The electronic response you received, dated 13 February, should have reached you on that day – I apologise for the delay, which was due to a fault in our system.
The Welsh Assembly Government (and previously the Welsh Office) has commissioned numerous research projects to inform the search for sustainable sources of aggregates since the 1990’s.
The first major piece of research was ‘Bristol Channel Marine Aggregates: Resources and Constraints’ research project (published August 2000), which was co-funded with DETR and the Crown Estate. The work was conducted by Posford Duvivier and ABP Research.
This was followed by ‘South Wales Sand and Gravel’ (by Symonds, 2000); ‘Crushed Rock and Sand in South Wales’ (by British Geological Survey [BGS], 2000); Comparative Impact Assessment of Land and Marine Sand & Gravel in South East Wales’ (by Symonds, 2002); North West Wales Sand and Gravel Research (by Liverpool University/Enviros, 2003); Establishing a Methodology for Assessing Aggregates Demand and Supply (by Arup, 2003); Implementing the Methodology for Assessing the Environmental Capacity for Aggregates (by Enviros, 2005).
It also co-funded the ‘Outer Bristol Channel Marine Habitat Study’ (published 2006) which was conducted by the National Museum of Wales and BGS, to investigate the environment of potential future dredging areas west of the Gower.
All these reports are available to inspect here, and copies of most of them may be purchased from us.
Coastal monitoring is carried out regularly on behalf of the dredging companies by reputable organisations. The monitoring is specified by the conditions attached to dredging licences. In addition the Welsh Assembly Government has commissioned its own monitoring surveys from independent contractors, and from the University of Glamorgan. These documents are also available for inspection at this office.
The land use planning policy guidance in relation to mineral extraction and related developments in Wales is set out in ‘Minerals Planning Policy Wales’, published by the Welsh Assembly Government in December 2000. To supplement this, the Minerals Technical Advice Note 1: Aggregates was published in March 2004.
A Position Statement on the supply of sand and gravel for South East Wales was published by the Welsh Assembly Government in December 2002 (copy attached for ease of reference). This was followed by the Interim Marine Aggregates Dredging Policy (IMADP), published in November 2004. The IMADP concluded that there would be a need for marine-dredged sand to supply the South Wales market for the foreseeable future. The Assembly publications, and executive summaries of the research reports, are available on our website www.wales.gov.uk
The new aggregate facility at Neath (Derwen Construction) is an interesting development which we are supporting through the work of the Wales Environment Trust, funded by the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund. It will not be able to match the tonnages needed in the short term, but goes some way to providing an alterative to the marine supply of sand.
The struts on the beach at Oxwich are presumably an old sand stabilisation structure that has become uncovered with the movement of sand. The County Council at Swansea might be able to confirm this from their records.
Yours sincerely
Linda Scott (Mrs)
Environmental Planning
You are blinded by something as to the impact of inshore dredging on Gower beaches. I suspect I know the answer. Will carry on fighting this issue and urge you to help stop it. The Europeans ban it - . We can build more Derwen aggregates. Their marketing people are asking me for help in breaking into the construction industry.
Peter Letheren
Mr Letheren
we have asked the Wales Environment Trust (WET) to assist with the marketing issue for Derwen Plant -
we support WET via the Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund, which is administered in Wales by this Branch.
Yours sincerely
Linda Scott
Mr Rhodri Morgan
First Minister
Welsh Assembly Government
14th March 2007
DREDGING IN THE BRISTOL CHANNEL
I have seen a copy of a letter sent on your behalf to Mr Peter Letheren on 13 February 2007, regarding the problem of sand loss from Gower beaches. I attach a copy for your ease of reference.
Frankly, this response to legitimate concerns about undeniable sand loss is unsatisfactory. Mrs Scott’s statement that monitoring “does show recovery” is extraordinary. It defies the visible evidence, witnessed by many people in Gower. I have walked Gower’s beaches regularly for over 20 years. In the past 10 years, I have witnessed more sand each year being removed by the winter storms and less sand being replaced each summer. This has been a progressive trend and is certainly visible in Three Cliffs and Pobbles Bays with which I am most familiar.
The letter from Mrs Scott smacks of a partisan defence of the sand and gravel extraction industry and of the Establishment surrendering to interests in the building industry who are obviously not concerned with the effect on the beaches that close offshore extraction is having. Whilst I realise that industry economics are important, the building industry in parts of the UK far from the sea manages to cope and I am not aware of building costs in Wales being any lower as a result of this easy pillage of the sandbanks off Gower.
You are no doubt already aware, but I repeat it, that in the Netherlands, dredging is prohibited within a much larger range from the shoreline. I understand that the company which dredges off Gower is owned by a Dutch company. It seems perverse that they are not allowed to endanger the beaches of their own country but can come to Wales and be given a licence to do so off Gower.
I think it is vitally important to the electorate to know your party’s view on this issue before the Assembly elections. Delay of the Government View, or silence on this point will lead one to assume that Labour sees no votes in defending the beaches of Gower. But future generations will not thank your administration for permitting the destruction of a valuable natural asset for the sake of narrow economic interests.
Yours faithfully,
Bruce Burniston
this action must stop the quality of beaches are nothing like what they were 10 years ago and I think that they have taken more sand out than the area can stand and all extraction halted. mervyn beason
Can anyone tell me why environmental pressure groups such as Greenpeace are not involved here? Televised coverage of a greenpeace small boat shadowing the dredger would surely bring the debate to a national level and place massive pressure on the Welsh Assembly to stop dredging immediately. Anybody who regularly uses the beaches will tell you that there is indeed a natural movement of sand relating to tide/wind direction. You would expect to see sand disapear under certain natural conditions. However a different set of conditions would replenish the beaches similarly. What we are seeing here is a loss of sand with no replenishment. I have visited Port Eynon for over 40 years and in the last 10 years or so have witnessed a steady decline in the levels of sand. To deny this you'd have to be a fool or corrupt or both! Please Rhodri Morgan save our Welsh beaches.
D Benjamin
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