Meeting Notes from October 2023 (Taken by Moira Williams):
DCWW drinking water: Talks to WI to spread awareness, engagement with farming families via Farming Connect, weather stations to be set up on farms.
DCWW waste water: working with NRW 28 new tighter permits on Teifi – 14 backstop and 14 tighter than backstop – to reduce phos. Two accelerated into current 5 year plan – Lampeter and Llanybydder. These 2 will remove a big proportion of phos needed. (Slaughterhouse has own permit & phos not on it). With CeCC assessing suitable wetlands for trialling phos removal near treatment works – potentially Cilgerran, Cenarth, Clettwr.
NRW: Ari Team – 10 in north, 10 in south – visiting every farm with more than 200 head cattle in Ceredigion – checking compliance with new agri regs. Advisory and enforcement. Aug 2023 new slurry regs – farmers to track amount and where spread, assess weather conds and risks, management plan. Storage potential problem, esp if not enough before slurry spreading re-starts. Need to address how farmers’ habits will change, re nutrient load in river. Need to help farmers look at stock/land/nutrient ratio. Potential of losing small dairy farms over new regs.
4Rivers4Life project – linked to above, working with farmers. Real slurry problem on smaller farms esp on some Teifi tributaries eg Hirwaun. Riparian fencing ongoing.
NRW recruitment freeze until April 24.
Report for parameters of nutrients in marine env – imminent.
CeCC – Nutrient Management Board set up. 9Km riparian fencing done with WWRT, 13 farms with management plans, SUDs planter schemes in towns eg Cardigan and Lampeter (part of PRAM project – Phosphate Reduction & Mitigation), septic tank guidance distributed, monitoring equipment purchased for cit sci.
Wetland Mitigation areas – Cilgerran, Cenarth, Afon Clettwr (wet woodland)
Hoping to have open access website in near future for post-mitigation data. Using Sonds/Lorawan monitoring methods.
A team in Aber uni looking at creating an app for logging landuse – to be trialled in Teifi Demonstrator project.
