Water quality in the Western Cleddau River, Pembrokeshire
I want to acknowledge and apologise for the issues that we have had at our Haverfordwest effluent treatment facility that have led to discoloured discharges and solids going into the river.
We are working with our technical partners and investing in immediate changes to ensure we minimise the risk of any reoccurrence in the future. This includes the installation of additional filtration mechanisms and we have stepped up our levels of monitoring of the treatment plant to ensure we are making positive and effective changes. While we’ve taken these immediate actions, we’re committed to making continued investment to reduce our impact further.
There are many contributing factors that affect the water quality in the Western Cleddau, we are engaging with the local community and other organisations to understand what can be done more widely to improve the local environment in the long term.
As a business that is committed to sustainability and to doing the right thing, we are taking these issues very seriously and are working hard to make things better.
Shelagh Hancock
Chief Executive
Update – Western Cleddau River
Monday 24th July 2023
We would like to make you aware that on Saturday July 22 we had a period of around two hours when the discharge from our Haverfordwest Effluent Treatment Plant (ETP) to the Western Cleddau river was discoloured. We wholeheartedly apologise for this.
We are working hard to minimise the risk of issues arising with the ETP at our Haverfordwest Creamery, including around the clock monitoring and the recent installation of additional filtration mechanisms, which we are still commissioning.
Unfortunately, despite these changes, due to the exceptionally high levels of rainfall on Saturday, combined with some short-term operational challenges, the plant was unable to cope adequately for a small period of time, which led to the short-term discoloration.
We immediately took steps to rectify this situation whilst self-reporting this incident to Natural Resources Wales (NRW).
As a co-operative that is committed to doing the right thing, we take these ongoing challenges very seriously, and continue to work with our technical partners to optimise the operation of the effluent treatment plant to reduce our impact.
We will continue engaging with specialist advisers, regulators and the local community to understand what else we can do to play our part in improving the local river environment in the long term.