Now, just a few decades on from the closure of the mines, the signs of toxic coal are gone and the area glows with greens, blues and golds as Gaia has reclaimed what was always hers. The Taff is crystal clear, with otter, fish, insects and birds returning to make it their home, and those who love wildlife take great pleasure in the remarkable transformation which has occurred in a short period of time.
One of the birds to have returned is the dipper, a pretty bobbing black and white bird which lives on water. Researchers have been monitoring the dipper population here, even analysing their eggs to see their state of health: everyone is agreed that to have them on the Taff, with its recent dirty history, is a happy testimony to how it has become cleaner, but what is concerning is that the study shows a high quantity of poisonous chemicals in the birds and their eggshells as a result of pollution in the river water: indeed, it shows that the Taff has possibly the highest levels of toxicity from plastics and chemical waste of any country in the world.
It is logical to assume that other birds and animals who use the Taff are affected also as well as the humans whose water, directly or indirectly, comes from this large Welsh river. If a similar study of our water birds was carried out on all our rivers, I wonder how much poison would be found in them? And would anything be done?
I find this story, reported briefly on the BBC Today programme over the weekend, alarming, particularly coming at the same time as evidence that, in the UK, we are taking double the quantity of water from our watercourses as we did 40 years ago, and that it is unsustainable. It is done to support our growing population and our water-wasteful (and plastic-loving) lifestyle, and I am sad that we continue to be so careless of our precious resources.
If she saw waste, my grandmother would use an expression, “You will live to want”: she was so right.
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