New Quay is potentially impacted by numerous storm, emergency and surface water outfalls within the main freshwater inputs, particularly during heavy rainfall.
Within the catchment of New Quay Harbour bathing water, there are numerous storm, emergency and surface water outfalls that discharge into the coastal streams. These protect domestic properties from being flooded by sewage during heavy rainfall. However, sewer overflows operating during and following periods of heavy rain can result in a deterioration in the quality of the water in the streams and at New Quay Harbour bathing water.
In recent years, telemetry equipment has been installed in most of the overflows by the water company. This technology has allowed Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water to respond to warnings of blockages in the sewage system and has reduced the number of actual and potential overflows. DCWW have recently rolled out the new storm overflow map which provides near real-time information about Dwr Cymru’s storm overflow activity, as indicated by the event duration monitors. The map can be used to see if monitors indicate if a storm overflow is currently operating (as designed to do during or after heavy rainfall) and the date/time of the last recorded activity of operation.
A project known as Event Duration Monitoring (EDM) was undertaken to install telemetry on Combined Sewer Overflows (CSOs) within 2km of a bathing water by 2020 so that Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water (DCWW) know when the CSOs are operating and can work to reduce spills. One CSO near New Quay Harbour was included in this project.
