MIKE HEDGES MS CALLS FOR PEOPLE WHO POLLUTE RIVERS TO BE FINED

MIKE HEDGES MS CALLS FOR PEOPLE WHO POLLUTE RIVERS TO BE FINED

Speaking from his Senedd Office, local MS, Mike Hedges said… ‘I am regularly contacted by anglers and other people who use the River Tawe about sewage and other pollutants in the river which affects both their enjoyment of the river and damages the valuable eco systems within the river.

As with so many area of life, sadly, people only change their behaviour when there is a monetary penalty to their behaviour.

We need a far more rigorous approach to enforcing regulations and fining of offenders.

Only when those who cause the pollution pay large sums for the damage they cause will they change their behaviour’.

Mike Hedges MS17:07:40

Can I thank Joel James for giving me a minute in this debate? In the nineteenth century, there was a belief that you could put anything into the sea and rivers and it would dissipate, no problem at all—it would just dilute down to nothing. In the second half of the twentieth century, we came to realise that this was not true and started to clean up our rivers. Unfortunately, we appear to be now reverting back to the nineteenth century.347

I want to make three quick points. We have untreated sewage discharging into rivers such as the Tawe by the Trebanos treatment works; phosphorous pollution is leading to eutrophication in the River Wye; microplastic has ended up in the water everywhere. We then drink this water after water treatment has taken place. If people saw what the water looked like before it got treated, they probably wouldn’t drink it.348

There is a need to clean up our rivers and fine polluters. The only way you are going to stop people polluting is when it starts hitting them in their pockets; otherwise, polluters do not pay anything for it and it does them no harm.