House of Commons Hansard Debates for 16 Apr 1991

Mr. Morgan : I am happy to give my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth and for Vale of Glamorgan (Mr. Smith) maximum credit. They worked together to get assurances about the Lavernock outfall and got an improvement on the original intention when we discussed the matter on Second Reading.

I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth would be happy to concede that the key

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point is the interpretation of the relevant EEC municipal waste water directives. We are all aware that while legislation may be encouraging, the actual experience of walking along our river banks shows that conditions do not always improve according to the legislation. The National Rivers Authority and Welsh Water will say that they have done their best and have spent a lot of money, but that consumers would not pay for more improvements. Unless there is compulsion, the authorities do not always do what is required. Ten years ago, when one walked along the banks of the River Ely in my constituency there was no smell of sewage because there was no discharge of sewage from the Cowslip and Cogan outfalls on the rising tide and the sewage was not carried inland. As more houses were built in the area, sewage had to be discharged at all times when the outfall was covered by water. Then the sewage was carried upstream first and downstream later. As soon as the tide goes down, the banks are hideously ill-smelling. Those are the sort of practical problems. Does the public believe that the job will be done as it is supposed to be in this optimistic legislation? The public want us to try to enforce that lesson by introducing greater compulsion.

Mr. Michael : I do not want to take up the time of the House by correcting the odd description that my hon. Friend gave of the results of the Cowslip estate. There are certainly problems there, but they will be helped by the measures resulting from the barrage. My hon. Friend said that it was not enough to have things in legislation or regulation. The fact that EC directives have contained rules has not necessarily brought about the results that we would require--that is certainly true.

The diverted sewers from the Cardiff bay area will feed into Lavernock and, as a result of the statement made by the Secretary of State for the Environment at the last year's North sea conference, a firm undertaking was given with regard to treatment at future outfalls around the coast of Britain. My hon. Friend the Member for Vale of Glamorgan and I exerted pressure to try to ensure that that undertaking should apply to the Lavernock outfall and should not be regarded, as the Government then appeared to intend, as something for which permission had already been given. We received an absolute promise from the Secretary of State for the Environment that it would be a treated outfall and would fall within the terms of the undertaking given at the North sea conference.

Mr. Morgan : I accept everything that my hon. Friend has said. The only difference between us relates to the form of treatment that would need to be given. My interpretation of the EC directive on municipal waste water is that it could very well compel Welsh Water and the National Rivers Authority to come to an arrangement whereby third-stage treatment-- phosphate and nitrate removal--would have to be carried out at Lavernock or any other sea outfall taking municipal waste water.

The undertaking that my hon. Friends the Members for Cardiff, South and Penarth and for Vale of Glamorgan got from the Secretary of State was that secondary treatment, which does not include phosphate and nitrate removal, would be carried out. That involves biological reaction, oxygenation and the usual treatments that take place in most British sewage works. But my reading of the EC directive is that the Lavernock sea outfall would be regarded as discharging into a sensitive district because

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there are so many bathing beaches there--it is almost one continuous bathing beach from Lavernock point to Barry island. It is not one of the great resorts of Great Britain, but is a popular resort, which would make it a sensitive water. In addition, the outfall discharges from a population of more than 10,000 people, in terms of coastal discharges, and 2,000 people, in terms of inland population--for which Cardiff, Penarth, Dinas Powys and Barry certainly qualify. If the outfall requires third-stage treatment, we need an undertaking from the Secretaries of State for the Environment and for Wales that goes beyond the undertaking that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has received. That is the only difference between us. I am happy with the undertaking that he has received so far as it goes, but the very fact that there is a difference of opinion between our interpretation of the EC directive reinforces the reason for the new clauses.

If, as we state in new clause 8, those sewers must be diverted and treated up to the EC standards that will exist in 1995 when the barrage will open for business, and third-stage treatment is required, there is still no undertaking to cover that. That is my understanding of the Secretaries of State's undertaking to my hon. Friends for Cardiff, South and Penarth and for Vale of Glamorgan. The undertaking covers only secondary treatment, but I think that the EC directive means that there will have to be full tertiary River Rhine-type treatment, including phosphate and nitrate removal. That is why we argue that the Bill must be specific--the matter cannot be left to the interpretation of the National Rivers Authority and Welsh Water. Those organisations may say, "Who really needs it, you only need that sort of thing on the Rhine. We do not want to mess around with that--it is much too expensive."

Mr. Win Griffiths : I thank my hon. Friend for allowing me to intervene at last, although I realise that he was pursuing an important argument regarding the intervention by our hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth (Mr. Micheal). During his discourse, before the original intervention when we both tried to intervene, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) was making a case about the cost to consumers of all the remedial works which were necessary to deal with this pollution. I merely want to confirm that the chairman of the former Welsh water authority and the current chairman of its successor, the privatised Welsh Water company, Mr. John Jones, is a constituent of mine. Whenever we meet he never fails to remind me that the cleaning up of our act as regards water quality is an expensive business. I therefore stress what my hon. Friend is saying, as that argument needs to be emphasised and to be considered in relation to the incredible extra costs that will be involved in keeping the water in the lagoon behind the barrage to a reasonable standard, if that can be successfully achieved over a long period of time.

Mr. Morgan : My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend used the phrase "cleaning up our act" and that is a good description of the set of clauses that we are debating because it is precisely what we are trying to do. I use the word "our" as though we were among the sponsors, which we are not. We are mainly Members of Parliament representing south Wales, who are especially interested in the Bill. I include my hon. Friend the Member for

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Wrexham as an honorary south Walian, which I am sure he will be pleased about, although I do not know whether his constituents would.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend mentioned the attitude of people such as the chairman of Welsh Water, who say that the consumer will never pay for that sort of treatment. They say that if there can be a conspiracy between consumers worried about the size of their water and sewerage bills, and the Government, who do not want the retail prices index to shoot up again to 8.9 per cent. or whatever and therefore say, "Keep water charges down", a conspiracy to keep the EC out of our water affairs, then so much the better. Our standards will be lower than those of the Germans and the Dutch, but what the hell. We British are a pretty dirty nation, especially we people in south Wales--we live among tips and so forth. People like the chairman of Welsh Water will say that if we can possibly get away with a minimalist approach, let us get away with it, as we have done for years.

I can remember meetings that I attended, with my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend, with the old Welsh Water--when it included the Welsh responsibilities of the present National Rivers Authority--where the question was asked, "Who needs any kind of treatment in coastal waters?" Five or six years ago there were long sea outfalls and it was said that the vigour of the British channel, the world's greatest natural flush lavatory, with 5 cu km of salt water roaring up the channel and back down again, dispersed the waste. The fact that it undispersed it and brought it back on the next tide did not seem to occur to Welsh Water, but eventually it had to agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend. However, one can see from his description that that same minimalist attitude still remains, and that is why new clause 8 is necessary to ensure that the promoters are firmly pinned down before impoundment takes place to decide whether these are sensitive waters. If they are, how do the promoters propose to comply with the municipal waste water treatment requirements for tertiary--that is full--treatment? That means that one is able to drink the water when it comes out of the sewage treatment works ; it does not contain eutrophicating surplus nutrients for algae, have biological consequences for our beaches, or contain the alleged super-germs, which have driven tourists away from all the beaches in the upper Bristol channel once it became known that they were there.

Dr. Marek : Before my hon. Friend leaves that point, will he say a little more about the River Rhine and consider whether what happens there would be effective in the Cardiff bay area? Where are the settlement tanks on the Rhine? How much do they cost? How effective are they? Could such treatment be used on the Taff?

2.45 am

Mr. Morgan : That intervention is pertinent to new clause 6 on phosphate and nitrate stripping. People were panic stricken about the state of the Rhine. Since the introduction of the Bill and the inception of the NRA, I know that the NRA has sent people to the Rhine to see the phosphate treatment works. I do not think that there is one in this country yet. Nobody has yet attempted to apply the higher standards in this country. As the only place where such works can be seen in action is on the Rhine, the NRA went over to see it. It has made a ballpark estimate

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of how much one would cost, as per the terms of new clause 6. The NRA is not unconscious of the EEC's possible requirement and of the duties that would then fall on the Department of the Environment and the Welsh Office to comply with any directives because national authorities have to comply with EEC directives and are fined by the European Commission and Court of Justice if they do not.

The NRA popped over to have a look at the many phosphate-stripping works on the Rhine, all of which have been built in the past 10 years, totally transforming the Rhine--except when there is a nasty big chemical spill in Switzerland. The NRA has tried to apply that to the phosphate and nitrate problem on the Taff from the Cilfynydd sewage works and to the problem on the Ely at Miskin, the Taff and Ely being the two rivers that discharge into the bay that we are talking about converting into a lake. It was thought that it would cost about £50 million to apply phosphate stripping at the points where the Taff and the Ely enter the lake. Although one cannot cover money in such a Bill, that is the money side.

Much more important, however--as is evident from the way in which we have worded new clause 6 on phosphate and nitrate stripping--is the location of the settlement tanks, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham mentioned in the earlier part of his intervention. That issue raises the question whether one has the necessary land or the compulsory purchase powers to acquire the land that would be required to take the Taff and Ely out of their courses, through iron and aluminium deposition tanks, and bring them back on to their natural courses so that they can discharge into the lake. There are no powers under the Bill for the compulsory acquisition of the land needed to bring the Taff and the Ely off-line and back on-line via the iron and aluminium tanks which are the only effective method of phosphate stripping. The treatment could take place at the sewage works, but that would miss out all the storm sewer overflows, or SSOs, which are a colossal localised problem in south Wales where there are hundreds of such overflows.

If hon. Members do not know what an SSO is, there is a superb example on Lambeth bridge. Those of us who live in Kennington can see it when we walk home at night. There is not a big SSO problem in London, which does not get the variations in rainfall encountered in south Wales, where the valley formation and large numbers of people living in enclosed valley communities mean that when the river rises--after rain, it might rise as much as 6 inches in a few hours--after a heavy rainstorm in south Wales, the rivers Rhondda, Cynon, upper Taff and Ely all rise rapidly and the SSOs discharge sewage because that is preferable to sewage being discharged upwards through people's toilets, flooding their kitchens and bathrooms. That problem is local to south Wales, which is why it is important to put it on the record now. It is relevant to the question of how to remove phosphates and nitrates, and to the issue of acquiring the land to take the Taff and the Ely off-course so that the water can be put through the tanks. Without the necessary powers, one is leaving oneself open to the classic Welsh Water and NRA response in Wales--that people in Wales do not really want that sort of thing, that they cannot afford it and would not pay for it, so why should our standards be as high as Germany's? We

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should be in the lead on public standards, not always having to catch up with what the Germans were doing on the Rhine five years ago.

The intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Wrexham is relevant because I am extremely concerned about the nitrate and phosphate stripping of the rivers and I do not know where the nitrate and phosphate-stripping works would be located. I have asked several times whether they would be located in Sophia Gardens, next to Glamorgan county cricket club. Is that where they envisage putting the giant third-stage treatment works? If it does not go there, where else could it go? It must go into public playing fields somewhere, which are covered by covenants. If new clause 6 is not accepted, the promoters will not be under any compulsion to show where they would put the works. The same applies to new clause 8 on the sewer diversions. If the sewer diversion powers were applied, the sewage was taken out to Lavernock and secondary treatment was provided, that would be fair enough. We know that that could be done. It would not involve a lot of land.

I interpret the EEC municipal waste water directive as requiring third- stage treatment. That puts the promoters in serious trouble. Where in the Lavernock area could it be sited? Would it involve reviving the old plants for the Cog Moors sewage works near Dinas Powys where my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend and I used to live? It is a fine village. In the geography textbooks it is called the largest village in Wales. Between there and the north-eastern suburbs of Barry there was to be a large sewage treatment works. That was about 20 years ago. There was a big campaign against the works in Dinas Powys. People did not want a sewage treatment works, but they accepted it in the end. However, Welsh Water decided not to build it. It said that it did not need it and that long sea outfalls would do the trick.

Now Welsh Water is seeking to build sewage treatment works again. It always tries to get away with a minimalist approach by saying that people in Wales do not want to afford sewage treatment, do not really need it and that the channel is always there. The easy way out is to bung the sewage in the sea. Now everyone has had to wake up to the fact that bunging sewage in the sea drives away tourists and leaves one open to legal challenge from the EEC. Under pressure from Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, local Members of Parliament and members of the public who are anxious about their environment, Ministers have had to give undertakings.

Parents will not take young children to swim at St. Mary's Well bay, Penarth or other places where I took my children to swim in the belief that the salt killed all the germs. People no longer take that attitude. They want to know whether a beach has the EEC blue flag award. That can be achieved only if promoters of measures such as this are tied down to proving that they can meet the standards. The new clause would tie them down and if they could not show to the satisfaction of the authorities how they intended to meet the standards of waste water treatment that will apply when the barrage opens for business through to 2005 or 2015--that is as far as legislators can reasonably look ahead, to our retirement--they could not build the barrage. It would be a dereliction of our duty to allow them to do so. Unless we do that, we cannot bring about the improvements that are required.

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We must be able to show that we are giving sewage treatment the priority that it deserves, that the south Wales tourist industry deserves and that the local public who want to teach their children to swim deserve.

We cannot always foresee exactly how an environmental problem will turn out. One of the latest problems that has emerged is generation of methane by tips, which was not foreseen. That is referred to in the new clause that deals with the Ferry road tip. That tip is a major generator of methane. The Ferry road tip is the direct subject matter of new clause 17 and the indirect subject matter of new clause 5. It is the biggest tip in Wales and one of the biggest in Britain. It contains 2 million cu m of waste. We were told by the promoters last year, when they proposed to acquire the tip for the purposes of removing it to Bedford, that it contained 3 million cu m, but we are now told that a more accurate measurement is 2 million cu m. We are happy to accept that downgrading, but it is still a very big tip. The tip is at the peak of its methane-generating capabilities. It is at the height of its decomposition now because the average life of the black bags buried under the top soil is about 10 years. The tip has been open for business since 1972 and is still going strong. It has another seven or eight years of life, if use of it does not stop by Cardiff Bay development corporation acquiring it.

The interesting point about the methane is that no one realised until two or three years ago how serious a problem methane generation from tips was. We now know that it is a serious problem. Methane can migrate several hundred metres underground before it suddenly shoots up to the surface where it can be lit by a spark. It can get inside a house. That happened in Derbyshire last year or two years ago. Bells were set off everywhere. There was a major report.

Methane from tips such as that at Ferry road is a major problem which has just crept up on legislators such as ourselves and the regulatory authorities to which we vote money every year. We never realised how important it was. Giant tips generate a lot of methane and Ferry road tip will presumably be a major source of methane. Cardiff city council is a forward-looking authority which has bought its own gas-testing rig. One result of Cardiff's being good at its job is that when the Department of the Environment collected statistics on the generation of methane from sites--they were published in the newspapers about two weeks ago--Cardiff was shown to have more notifiable sites generating methane above a certain level than any other city. I cannot remember whether Cardiff had 17 and London 19, or the other way round. That does not mean that the sites in Cardiff generate as much methane as those in London. It merely means that the authorities in Cardiff have been doing their job properly and have actively tried to discover where the methane is being generated at old tips, at today's tips and at places which are not even tips but where there is organic material under the soil, and they have found that there are 17 or 19 notifiable sites. That puts it roughly on a par with London, which is 20 times as big. If London had a gas-detection rig, I am sure that it would have 20 times as many methane-generating sites as Cardiff.

Ferry road tip is easily Cardiff's biggest waste disposal site and new clause 17 proposes that it should have major treatment. On the assumption that it is not moved but left in situ, we want to know how it is to be treated.

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But there is an even bigger problem about the Ferry road tip. New clause 17 specifies that a measure of sealing must be carried out there before impoundment. We have emphasised that because the Ferry road tip is crucial to the Ferry road side of the barrage--in other words, the western edge of the barrage.

As we have heard dozens of times during the passage of the Bill through both Houses of Parliament, the purpose of the barrage is to create a lake which will assist in regenerating the area by producing land for development worth many millions of pounds per acre rather than £500,000 per acre, because it will be a classier environment. That is a lovely theory, but the problem is the geography of the lake.

Development on the east side of the lake near the docks is proceeding anyway. Running from the Queen Alexander dock entrance to the pierhead building, the property development subsidiary of Associated British Ports has said that it is proceeding with the first phase of its £160 million development on its 160 acres regardless of the barrage. It hopes to start in October.

It is only the area near the Ferry road tip on the west side of the barrage that the barrage can possibly make any difference to. That is why, after Second Reading 18 months ago, it was said that the Ferry road tip would be moved to Bedfordshire and fresh top soil brought in so that the land could be used for houses, business parks, offices and so on. There were lovely models of that. That would be the pay-off from the barrage. The barrage makes no difference to the east side near the docks, but it does make a difference to the area near the Ferry road tip.

We are now confronted with the revelations from the Touche Ross report and the discussions between its consultants and the Welsh Office. I note that the junior Minister is writing furiously--no doubt he is evaluating his response to my speech. It is now clear that the Ferry road tip will not be removed, so how does one develop the west side of the barrage?

3 am

Is a high-class property development envisaged near a tip that will be generating methane? That tip must be sealed and the methane extracted from it. We have set out in new clause 17 what should happen to the Ferry road tip. It should be treated, sealed and then converted for the most appropriate low-density land use as a former municipal tip. As in the past, it could be developed as a playing field and, eventually, after 50 years, when the tip is inert and no more methane is being generated, it could be converted for a more high-class use.

At present it is impossible to envisage the exhumation of that tip, its wholesale excavation or the outlandish transportation of it in cross- country trains full of stinking, half-decomposed refuse. The tip should be treated to make it more environmentally acceptable. That means that one must accept that the site can no longer form the centrepiece of a high- class, yuppie development of office blocks. One will not get mega-valuable property development on the land around the Ferry road tip.

If the tip remains, it must be converted for playing field use and similar low-density development, with industrial development around it. That would be acceptable, sensible and safe so long as the tip is made safe as a result of methane extraction and sealing. If one accepts that, one must accept that there is no economic case for the barrage.

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The sole purpose of the barrage has been to generate high-class property development around the Ferry road tip. If the tip remains, however, sensible, safe development will occur if we accept the strictures of new clause 17. One should not imagine that it is possible to remove the problem from Cardiff to Bedford.

Sludge dumping at sea is covered by the sewage diversion proposal in new clause 8 and by new clause 19. We have had a lengthy, scientific, erudite deposition on algae scum from my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Davies) and I shall not repeat what he said. He is right to suggest that algae represent a great problem. They are recognised as such on page 36 of the Bill which already specifies the removal of algae growths as a duty to be laid on the undertakers.

Algae growths are a problem in dry summers such as those that we had in 1976, 1981, 1989 and 1990. In general, however, we have an exceptionally dry summer every five years. In those years the entire country is subject to drought and that causes huge algae blooms. When that happens, the oxygen levels crash. Algae require oxygen at the breeding stage ; without it they die and decay anaerobically at the bottom of the water. A major fish kill will then result. At one time, it was envisaged that there would be a large coarse fishery in the bay. We are still not absolutely clear whether the promoters still envisage a coarse fishery. One new clause that I tabled, but which has not been selected, stipulated that they must include a coarse fishery. It would be a crying shame if the requisite water quality standards could not be achieved. I am sure that the promoters will want to inform the general public in Cardiff what they are to expect and whether there will be a coarse fishery. After all--and we shall return to this subject on the midges amendment--without a coarse fishery, how will one control the midges? Coarse fish eat colossal quantities of midges and we are informed that there will be 11 billion midges--not in the middle of the lake but above the shallows and around the edges, nearer to where people will be walking. The problem with algae is that they may crash and cause a major fish kill--if we have any fish--every five years when there is a summer drought. To prevent that from happening, one has to step in and hoover them out. A harvesting machine must be developed to pull the algae out of the water before they reach the blooming stage and cause a crash. In a drought, just the right conditions may be created. The sunlight, the temperature of the water, the nutrients coming in from sewage disposal and so on may all be ideal.

The promoters must tell us what they intend to do to avert the problem of algae. If they accept what most scientists accept--that every five years, when there is a drought, there will be an uncontrollable problem--they must accept, too, that that will mean a major stink in the lake. The lake may have to be drained. All the fish in it will have died and will have to be fished out. We may be talking about millions of coarse fish--which will then have to be taken out and burnt--in addition to the algal scum, which will also have to be disposed of. It cannot be dumped at sea. There is no question of sewage sludge including algal scum being shoved out by way of diverted sewer pipes via the Lavernock outfall. In 1995, that will not be allowed. There will be no method of handling huge quantities of algal scum, and that will result in major fish kills and major problems in the drought summers that we must expect every five years.

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We want to tie the promoters down now. We want them to make proposals regarding the treatment of the algal blooms and scum mentioned on page 36 of the Bill. We have not invented the subject. We want to see the colour of the promoters' money before we give them permission to impound. How do they propose to solve the problem? At the moment, the only solution that we are offered is a load of waffle--a promise that the National Rivers Authority will extract from the promoters an assurance that they will solve the problem. But the distinguished specialist scientists are saying that they do not yet have a solution. We say, "If the scientists say that there is not a solution to the problem, we must leave an obligation on the promoters to find a solution or accept that they cannot build a barrage." We cannot allow them to build a barrage on trust, knowing of the kind of problems that they themselves admit will arise. The highly eutrophic waters will give rise in drought summers not just to the early-season cladophera-type algae that we see every year in Cardiff but to the later microcystis and to the other nasties that caused the deaths on Rutland Water. Every five years, in drought conditions, we would have a proliferation of blue-greens and therefore oxygen crashes and consequent fish kills. We should then have to face the problem of draining the lake and scraping out and burning dead fish bodies. The current ministerial sales line, and the approach of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, who has moved to the Front Bench, is, "Trust the authorities to extract the right undertakings and to establish the correct and acceptable modus operandi with the promoters." We say that if the promoters cannot show us what that modus operandi will be, we do not think that the barrage should be built. We therefore urge that a permission to impound shall be dependent on the achievement of a specific modus operandi acceptable to the scientists working in the regulatory bodies. We want that informaion to be produced and published with no hole-in-corner negotiations going on between the Welsh Office and consultants behind the backs of the people of Cardiff and their democratic representatives and about which we know nothing--unless, that is, we are lucky enough to acquire odd parts of the consultants' reports. That is not good enough. We want to be specific. We want the promoters to produce and publish a plan that shows exactly how they propose to solve the problem of leachates seeping out of the Ferry road tip and of the sealing off of that tip.

We have not heard yet, but it is obvious that the promoters are worried about the sealing, or they would never have suggested removing the tip wholesale as a sine qua non of any subsequent property development. We think that they are probably coming round to the view that it cannot be moved--in which case they should accept new clause 17, and recognise that it should be treated and sealed. That would be a step towards an acceptable compromise between the promoters and those who feel that the problems have not been solved in relation to the five big issues--leachate, phosphate and nitrate stripping, sewage removal, the sealing of the Ferry road tip and the disposal of algal growth arising from surplus nutrients, which itself arises from the insoluble problems posed by the 250 or so storm sewer overflows in the rivers feeding the man-made lake and their tributaries.

Earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd said that it was putting the cart before the horse for the

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sponsors to seek permission for the building of the barrage before solving the problems. I think that I have found the solution. The only time that the cart is put before the horse is when the horse is suffering from galloping gastric dysentery. In those circumstances, in front of the horse is the only place for the cart to be. The south Wales river system is not yet in a position to avoid galloping gastric dysentery--and with the 250 storm sewer overflows it may never be. The barrage should not be built until a solution is proposed. It has been suggested--my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn) heard it, and I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth also mentioned it--that, given its considerable Government backing, if we accept the package the Government will feel obliged to put their hands in their pockets and give a lot of money to Welsh Water, the National Rivers Authority or the barrage. The barrage must have first-class conditions. Never mind what happens to investment programmes elsewhere in Wales ; the Treasury must cough up for the barrage--although it may not cough up for many other purposes, such as hospitals.

The Government's sales pitch is "Have a barrage--you may not want it, but we are telling you that it is good for you." We ask, "What will you give us with the barrage? Will you improve the sewerage system?" They say, "Sure-- if you are willing to accept the barrage, we will certainly give you money for your sewage disposal system." In the first place, that could not be called honest dealing with the public in south Wales. If our sewerage needs improvement, it should have it.

No improvement of the storm sewer overflows is being offered. People say, "Surely there is a technique. If there are 250 such overflows in the valleys--in the tributaries of the Taff and Ely, and in the rivers themselves, which feed the lake--there must be a solution." I have not heard of one. In the 1970s, a huge investment was devoted to solving the storm sewer overflow problem on the Tyne, the Wear and the Mersey. Those areas were in a way similar--they housed the first wave of the industrial revolution, and contain the old sewerage systems. Anyone who walked along the banks of the Tyne in the 1960s and 1970s will remember that in the middle of Newcastle the river stank, due to storm sewer overflows.

I believe that £100 million was invested. That was heavy bread back in 1971, when the Secretary of State for Wales of 1987-89 was Secretary of State for the Environment in the Government led by the right hon. Member for Old Bexley and Sidcup (Mr. Heath). He authorised the Mersey and the Tyne to have complete new sewerage systems, which included new rainwater sewers about 10 ft wide running alongside the Mersey, the Tyne and Wear. The purpose was to catch all the surplus rainwater to prevent the rivers from always being full of sewage after heavy rain.

As far as I know it is impossible to do that in south Wales. A new rainwater sewer parallel to the Taff and comparable to the system alongside the Tyne and the Mersey to solve storm sewer overflow problems would leave no room for the houses in the valleys. It would be above the road and the houses would dominate the environment. That is because the Mersey, Tyne and Wear do not have catchment areas with rainfall similar to that in south Wales. Rain in south Wales discharges immediately into the rivers in the 19 valleys.

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3.15 am

I am sure that the Minister of State, Welsh Office is aware of the level of rainfall on the plateau of the south Wales coalfield from which rivers would discharge into this lake. There are 90 to 100 inches of rain a year there, which is greatly in excess of the rainfall in the catchment areas of the Mersey, Tyne and Wear. The problem is made worse by deforestation because wood was needed for pit props or battle ships. That led to the loss of soil on the valley sides and there are bare sandstone faces on many of the valleys which feed the tributaries. Rainwater on the plateau gushes down the bare sandstone faces. There is no soil to absorb it and it is not taken up by the roots of trees because there are no trees. The water reaches the rivers within an hour. The river rises fast and the pressure on the rainwater sewers is such that if sewage was not discharged into them, it would enter the houses.

A rainwater gutter system similar to that on the Mersey, Tyne and Wear to take surplus water after heavy rain would need to be 10 to 20 ft high and would obliterate the landscape. It is physically out of the question. Municipal engineers who are experts in that field say that such a solution would totally obliterate the living environment of the valleys.

Mr. Win Griffiths : My hon. Friend is in full flood on this issue. He is discussing the possible adoption of the scheme that was introduced on the Tyne and the Mersey in the early 1970s. Is there any solution to the storm drain problem? If there is not, what will happen in the valleys?

Mr. Morgan : Modest improvements could be made to the storm sewer overflows. The filters could be cleaned and more modern valves could be fitted. There is no proposal to do that, but civil engineers are looking at the problem in south Wales and they say that we could have better storm sewer overflows. There are 250 of them and it is said that we do not know where some of them are. Many of them are private and do not belong to the National Rivers Authority or Welsh Water. Some of them are owned by small private sewerage works, and not all of them are authorised. Some have been built at isolated dwellings. Storm sewer overflows could all be classified and equipped with modern filters and valves. That solves one problem and might catch some of the solid material, but it will not solve the problem of nutrients because small non-solid bits of material would still be washed into the rivers.

The problem occurs only during spate flows, and some people contend that that solves the problem. Such a suggestion is sometimes made about Rutland Water, of which my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly spoke so eloquently. Everybody panicked after 10 sheep and 20 dogs--or perhaps it was 20 sheep and 10 dogs--died after lapping the water in the summer of 1989. Everyone said, "My God, what are we going to do about this?" The promoters and the regulatory authorities were asked what they intended to do to avoid a repetition of the Rutland Water incident, bearing in mind that it is admitted in the Bill that the waters are highly eutrophicated. They have not tried to deny that. They know that it means that in warm weather there is the potential for massive algae growth. They said that there was no need to worry about the Cardiff bay barrage lake because the water exchange will be so much more rapid than that which prevailed in the Rutland Water incident, where the same water had

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been present for 18 months. The average exchange in Cardiff bay would take place over about five days. It was said that the storm sewer overflows would work after heavy rain, and retention in the lake would be only one or two days.

Although retention time in a man-made lake will be far less than that in a river system--it might be only five days--any enriching material that is in the water, whether solids or ground-down bits of solids that have passed through the filters, will not be discharged through the sluices, which primarily will be top sluices to suit the fish. Any material that is below the top two or three feet of water in a 30 ft barrage will not be discharged. It will be blocked when it hits the wall. It will drop to the bottom at the speed that the water drops when it hits the concrete wall. It will then be distributed at the bottom of the lake. That, basically, is what the following year's algae will eat. That is what the following year's midges will feed on. They regard enriched mud as a favourable environment. That is the sort of environment that we shall see for the foreseeable future because of the SSOs.

It is true that SSOs do not open unless there has been a heavy shower, but many of them operate frequently in the summer. There might be a thunderstorm in July or August and a massive flow of water. There may be the discharge of 50 or 100 SSOs. The day after the storm might be warm and dry. Indeed, the following week might be dry. The sewage will enter the lake and be distributed on the bottom. If there is a dry spell of about a week thereafter, conditions will be perfect for an algae bloom. It looks as though there is one in the glass of water that I have been handed, for which I am otherwise grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgend. I think that it is known as Passing Cloud--my original American Indian name, but that was in a previous life.

Mr. Neil Hamilton (Tatton) : I wish that it had been Sitting Bull.

Mr. Morgan : I hope that the Hansard reporter caught that interjection. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman prefers that name because Sitting Bull opposed the advance of the railway. The private Bill procedure of the United States Congress was used to advance capitalism and the eradication of the hunting grounds of the Sioux. I remember that when I was a boy I used to pronounce the name of that tribe as Siowax, not realising that French explorers had reached the lands of the Sioux before the Welsh.

Storm sewer overflows represent a real problem, and one which should not be dodged. To avoid that happening, we must incorporate in the Bill the reinforced concrete mechanism set out in new clause 8 dealing with sewer diversion, and the mechanisms that are set out in the other new clauses providing for phosphate and nitrate stripping. We say that in the absence of a reinforced concrete mechanism and without the finding of a solution, there will be no barrage and impounding will not start. As it stands, the Bill is wishy-washy. It states, in effect, "All right, use the best available technology and you should be able to obtain permission to go ahead with the project. If there are problems, people will accept that you did not know as much as should have been known at the time. We hope

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that a lower standard will be accepted. After all, what could Parliament have been expected to do about this in 1988, 1989, 1990 and 1991 when it considered the Bill?"

Mr. Win Griffiths : I have listened carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West for the past hour and 55 minutes, but he has not yet referred to the fact that once the barrage is built, it will be there to stay. Given what my hon. Friend has said about unavoidable, catastrophic pollution problems, what about the cost implications and the dis-cost benefits of the barrage in view of the pollution problems?

Mr. Morgan : I am not quite sure what dis-cost benefits are. However, as I have already said, we must move on from the present position. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth and I agree about that. We do not accept that we can continue to use the sea and, in particular, the Bristol channel as the world's greatest flush lavatory for much longer. We accept that the sea does a great job because of the vigour of the tidal action and that it acts as the kidneys of the system in intertidal areas by its saline flushing action and its sweeping out to sea- -and the sweeping in of whatever is out at sea, including pollutants. The sea acts as a good, basic "nature knows best" mechanism for correcting the worst aspects of virology, bacteriology and solids and other visually offensive sewage material.

The sea does a job, but we must adopt second and third stage treatment. If we have treatment coupled with the marine flushing action of the sea moving in and out, that is a respectable environment for the standards that we anticipate for the 21st century.

Development would then progress very much along the lines envisaged by Sam Pickstock, the chairman of Tarmac Homes, in his epic interview in Country Living . He said that he thought that the future of Cardiff did not lie with trying to make it a mediterranean playground as portrayed in those wonderful artists' impressions. Those artists were hired by the promoters to draw brilliant iridescent blue lakes with little white boats bobbing up and down on them manned by people wearing green tee-shirts, black sunglasses and red shorts. That is all very pretty, but as Sam Pickstock said, what has that got to do with south Wales or Cardiff? Cardiff is not the mediterranean. Why can we not accept the environment in which we operate? If it is a little misty, grey, brown, or whatever the appropriate pastel shade might be for the south Wales environment, why try to compare it with the mediterranean or with Baltimore?

Mr. Morley : My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) has made a pertinent point about the image and the reality in terms of the technical problems that he so ably described to the House. With regard to the overflows from the storm sewers, I assume that there would be a build-up of organic material on the bottom of the lagoon. In the summer, the water will heat up. As it is accepted that there will be periods when the oxygen level in the lagoon would be extremely low, would not hydrogen sulphide gas be produced? Everyone knows that the smell of that gas does not fit in with the colourful mediterranean picture presented by the promoters. Will my hon. Friend comment on that?

Mr. Morgan : I had intended to make that important point. The promoters say that they thought of it and that

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they have provided a solution, but they do not know whether it works because it has never been tried anywhere else. One of the few good features of the Bill is that it includes a specific commitment to provide 5 cu litres of dissolved oxygen per gallon of water. I do not remember the precise standard, but it is to be found in the NRA protective clauses.

During a summer drought, river flows would drop. The proportion of river flows represented by treated sewage would therefore increase, in which case eutrophication would become not just a problem but an acute problem. Highly enriched water would enter a warm, shallow lake and provide perfect conditions for the multiplication of algae. The regulatory authorities would pursue the undertakings that they had obtained from the promoters when the oxygen level looked as though it would drop below the required standard. At that point the oxygenation machines would be introduced-- standard machines that one sees in all sewage works. Cardiff bay lake would then become one of the world's largest sewage works. Artificially injected oxygen would be introduced to neutralise the highly enriched treated sewage water. 3.30 am

Mr. Win Griffiths : My hon. Friend the Member for Glanford and Scunthorpe (Mr. Morley) referred to the deposition of the pollutants on the bed of the lake. Might not the oxygenation process be similar to what happens in a jacuzzi? Apart from the unpleasant smell of hydrogen sulphide, would not an unpleasant scum form on top of the lake?

Mr. Morgan : My hon. Friend raises an important point. He anticipates what could easily happen but what is not intended to happen. The promoters intend to get in first. When they realised, having consulted their monitoring equipment, that the oxygen level was dropping to the point where anaerobic fermentation takes place they would introduce oxygenation equipment to increase the oxygen level. Healthy bacteria, rather than anaerobic bacteria, would form the metabolic process in that enriched environment.

Mr. Alan W. Williams : Is not that the counsel of desperation? Large amounts of oxygen would be pumped into the lagoon. We face the same problem in the River Towy in Carmarthen. Poorly treated sewage enters the river upstream, which leads downstream to low oxygen levels in the summer and to the pumping of oxygen into the river. We have the equipment to pump oxygen into the river. Is not it similar to artificial respiration? A lagoon would be created where there could be low oxygen levels. Having created a problem, we should then have to devise a technical "fix." Would not it be much wiser not to create the problem in the first place?

Mr. Morgan : I was about to make that point. Oxygen would not be introduced for a known amenity purpose. We should have to cope with the deleterious side effects on the environment.

This is being done on the basis of the sales pitch that it is good for the environment. How are we to turn the environmental promise into reality when we know that the proposed solution to the problem of detritus is a kind of mobile boom that is supposed to collect floating bits of log and the doors that my hon. Friend the Member for Pontypridd sees passing as he looks down on the River

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Taff? What might be described as a lorry without wheels will be one of the intrusions into the lake. This machine will grab at bits of detritus. Then there will be the algae-harvesting equipment, whose purpose will be to prevent the algal blooms from getting out of hand. Those machines, too, will have to be able to get into the shallows as the algae will grow in a big way around the fringes. In terms of raised water temperature, sunlight has a much more drastic effect at the edges than in the middle, where the water may be 20 ft deep. Major algal blooms will not occur in the middle, but at the edges--in the correct conditions of nutrients and sunlight--a couple of algae could become a billion in about an hour.

In addition, there will be the oxygenation equipment. I still have a very deep scepticism about the nature of this equipment. It is reckoned that there will be fixed oxygenation points, as well as mobile points whose purpose will be to do a "fire brigade" job. Obviously, the lake will have a very variable bed. If patches of water look as though they are about to have an algal bloom, the oxygenation equipment will be rushed in on a "fire brigade" basis. So, in the middle of a drought, in a hot August, there will be three things rushing around the lake at the same time. That, of course, is the very time at which the lake, as an amenity, should be at its most attractive. When do most people go out walking? On a fine summer evening. When do most tourists go round the world? In August. Whether what is proposed might produce an acceptable environment on a freezing February day, shortly after a furious rain storm, is hardly relevant. The question is whether it will be an amenity when most people will want such an amenity. The early artists' impressions on the basis of which this scheme was sold depicted a shimmering, blue lake with lots of little dinghies bobbing about, and the occasional person water-skiing. A fleet of mobile oxygenating machines and an algae harvesting boat sucking up algae, or cutting it away from stones, and then discharging it on to some beach or jetty provide a very different picture. People will think, "This is a pretty rum lake. What was it made for? Is that big concrete wall for the pupose of generating electricity? It certainly prevents us from seeing the winking lights of Weston-super-Mare." They will come to the conclusion that the people of Cardiff have been sold a bum deal, and that the people who thought the scheme up should have been told, after about six months of study, that while it looked nice on paper--especially when depicted by an artist in the most favourable possible light, with lots of bright colours and pretty scenes--the environmental problems would not be manageable.

From time to time, including tonight, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth has referred to the Bute East dock. He has said that the water coming into this lake will be the same as that in the Bute East dock. He has made the point that if that dock constitutes an amenity, the man-made lake resulting from this barrage will surely be an amenity. It is important to put on record the fact that there are many problems in respect of the Bute East dock. The water is drawn in from the feeder at Black Weir and flows down through the town centre. That comes from the same source--the River Taff--but there are some differences, the biggest of which is that Bute East dock is a 10ft deep square box whereas the Cardiff bay lake would be a sloping shallow-edged lake. Most of it would be shallows, but there are no shallows in the Bute East dock,

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so there is no potential for warming in sunlight. Water 1ft or 2ft deep provides ideal conditions for algal blooms ; water 10ft deep does not. Algae are still in Bute East dock, but not huge blooms. In August 1989, algal blooms were worse in the feeder than in Bute East dock. Complaints to the city environmental health officer resulted in his having to warn the owners of Bute East dock--South Glamorgan county council, Tarmac plc and Cardiff city council--that they must get rid of the algae because they were clogging the feeder, which is about 4 ft deep. The algae were apparent in the dock. Employees at the county council's new headquarters, which adjoin the dock, could see that something strange was happening, but it was not a bloom ; the real bloom occurred in the feeders.

Bute East dock is not as shallow as the proposed man-made lake will be, but lorryloads of algae were removed on the instructions of the city environmental health officer in order to comply with the complaints of residents of the new Tarmac housing estate, which was built with the assistance of the Welsh Office through the highest urban development grant ever given in Britain of £8 million. It is a good development, but occasionally it causes problems with eutrophication and algal blooms, of which August 1989 was a prime example.

The second difference between Bute East dock and the new man-made lake is that the dock was directly locked with the sea. As a result, it is not all fresh water but has a salt water cell at the bottom. Approximately 1 ft of pure salt water has deposited itself on the bottom of the dock because salt water is heavier than fresh water. To some extent, that would control some of the problems that would arise with the man-made lake. The promoters accept that salt water will occasionally enter the lake by accident, which is why there will be a bottom sluice to get rid of it. That has the beneficial effect of being a modest form of biological control on the worst biological problems of salt water flowing from the Taff via the feeder. The third difference between Bute East dock and the lake is that the input can be controlled. Water from the Taff and Ely cannot be controlled, but what flows into the Bute East dock can be controlled. Flows can be cut off or increased because the feeder acts as a control. There is no control over what comes down the Taff and Ely, so Bute East dock has fewer management problems. The few problems that have been experienced act as a warning, which is why we have emphasised the need to ensure that the barrage cannot be impounded until the promoters find solutions to the problems that we have raised. The city environmental health officer has expressed great concern about the use already of Bute East dock for rowing purposes even though it is not conventional rowing where one might capsize. It is dragon racing in large galleys which are unlikely to capsize. Nevertheless, there is still potential danger from Weil's disease ; although it is a rare disease, it is fatal. Therefore, the environmental health officer has asked for strict controls, but he does not have power to ban the use of the dock. He can warn the public, but he cannot ban them from using the dock.

3.45 am

The same problem occurs with salmon in the River Taff. Salmon have returned to the Taff since the sewage works at Cilfynydd were opened and they have also

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returned to the River Ely since the Miskin sewage works were opened because the oxygen levels in the rivers in the summer have improved. But the National Rivers Authority warns people who catch the salmon not to eat them. I remind hon. Members that there are no trout in the Taff or in the Ely because trout are non-migratory fish which eat while they are in a river. Salmon and sea trout migrate ; they are in a spawning mode when they are coming up the river and in a migrating mode when going down, and they are not interested in eating. They breathe oxygen in through the water. That can taint the flesh and pose certain problems, but they can survive because they are not eating.

I was shocked when Lord Crickhowell, on Second Reading in the other place, did not mention that. He said that the fact that salmon had returned to the Taff showed that the answer had been found to our prayers and that we now had a clean river. He forgot that we had a re-oxygenated river because of the building of the sewage works at Cilfynydd. However, that did not allow salmon to eat in the river ; it meant that salmon could make a spawning run when they were already well stoked up with food from their transatlantic migration. Official advice to the public was not to eat those salmon. The River Taff and its tributaries meet the standard for salmonic fisheries because it considers only oxygen levels, but they do not reach the standard of allowing people to consume their products because of the tainting of the flesh and the carrying of virological diseases. Rivers which pass through urban areas such as Cardiff and Pontypridd are bound to have rats, and, if there are rats, there will be virological side effects.

Those are some of the environmental problems of water quality involved in the five new clauses which have been grouped together. We must nail the promoters down on them because the Bill was represented before the establishment of the National Rivers Authority. Now that it has come into being we are trying to put into the Bill what we think it would have been negotiating for had it been in existence. We see the evidence of that in what it is asking for in the Usk Barrage Bill. It is too late for the NRA to do the job on this Bill so we are trying to do it. We hope that there will be some movement later today when we complete the debate.

Dr. Marek : I listened with great interest to what my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff, West (Mr. Morgan) had to say. He said it succinctly, but used such a lot of material that his speech took some time in total. He demonstrated very well the purpose of the five new clauses, which are grouped together and are all important. It is a pity that we have not yet had any comment, either from the Bill's sponsor--who has just walked back into the Chamber--or the Minister. Reference has been made to the leaked letter from the Secretary of State for Wales to the Home Secretary. I shall not read it all out, but at the end of the first paragraph the Secretary of State for Wales talks about the Cardiff bay barrage. He states :

"I see it as a vital component of one of the most exciting urban regeneration projects in Europe, whose completion will bring enormous economic benefits to the whole of South Wales."

One might have thought that we would have at least one word uttered from those on the Treasury Bench this evening, but we have not heard anything. In the leaked document, the Secretary of State for Wales describes the

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barrage as one of the most exciting urban regeneration projects. I should have thought that a Minister would have come to the Dispatch Box to say so.

Mr. Win Griffiths : Would not my hon. Friend go even further and say that, although the Treasury Bench has been graced by the Minister of State and the Under-Secretary of State, given the release of the letter, the Secretary of State should have been here to defend the letter and comment on the fundamentally important debate that we have been having on the conditions under which we can consider the building of the barrage?

Dr. Marek : My hon. Friend makes a valid point. I thought that I saw the Secretary of State for Wales drifting in through the door into one of the Lobbies. At present, government is done by fiat because the Government majority is huge. There are other people to do the Government's work and sit there on the Front Bench. I mean no disrespect to the Minister, but he has no doubt been told that his job is to sit there and say nothing. It is a great pity because we are debating a private Bill that will affect the lives of many tens of thousands of Welsh citizens in the Cardiff district. At this consideration stage, we should be fashioning the Bill into a better piece of legislation.

We had a Division on the closure motion on the clauses and the House decided not to close the debate. I always believe that there is a purpose in what the House does and if it decided not to close the debate, why did it do so? Its purpose must have been either that there is some sense in the clauses and they merit further debate or that the Government have lost control of the House. The Whip has clearly been put on because of the leaked letter from the Secretary of State for Wales to the Home Secretary. The Government have lost control of the House and are no longer able to summon 100 of their Back-Benchers or payroll vote to force the Bill through.

What are the Government doing? It is a Government Bill as I see it ; the Secretary of State for Wales said that he regards it as one of the most exciting urban regeneration projects. It is not difficult to discern from that what the Government should be doing, and have been doing secretly-- giving the Bill their vigorous support.

Mr. Alan Williams : Is not this a curious debate? Hon. Members decided a couple of hours ago that we needed more debate on these clauses, yet no one from the Government has said a word about the pollution consequences of the barrage and the hon. Member for Cardiff, South and Penarth, who is the sponsor of the Bill, has not been in the Chamber. It is a very one-sided debate. We could keep putting forward the arguments, but no one is here to try to reply.

Dr. Marek : I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. We are not here merely because we want to block the Bill. Let me make my position absolutely clear ; I should like to see the right form of development in that part of Cardiff, and that probably goes for many of my hon. Friends who sit on these Benches. However, we are worried about the way in which it is done.

It is treating the House with disrespect to a certain extent when the sponsor of the Bill is not here to listen to our arguments and seek to put us right or to make helpful observations, or for the Minister and other members on the Treasury Bench merely to sit there--no doubt on

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