Llanelli Naturalists Newsletter - December 1984
F. H. Web

Readers will probably seen my letter in the ‘Llanelli Star’ on this subject so I will not repeat its contents here.

I only saw part of the experiments which took place over 6 days (8-13 November 1984) but from what I was told as well, they consisted of spreading a layer water emulsion which they call "mousse" on an area well back from the tide sea then getting as much as possible off the beach. This was done by pushing it up against a bund formed by bulldozing sand to make a bank. The mousse was then sucked up into a tank together with some of the sea water on top of which it had accumulated. It was then pumped from the tank into a skip taken away.

The mousse remaining on the, beach after this was sprayed with a dispersant and left to be mopped up by the incoming tide and subsequent tides.

I looked briefly at the site on Saturday 17th November 1984 and concluded that no damage had been done to wildlife and none would now occur as a result of those experiments. The birds and waders were present as usual and I am told that lugworms dug up by anglers near the experiment were not affected.

There were some superficial bands of black coloured sand grains, no doubt due to the experiments, but these are small in total compared with the bulk of the unaltered sand and will, I think, disappear over the next week or two. In any case similar black bands are not unusual on Cefn Sidan due to staining by organic matter normally present in sand.

I have been promised a copy of the report which will be produced by Warren Spring Laboratory and interested members will be able to see it.

F.H. Webb