Cwm Cynfal Copper Mine - Petition

[Robin Jones]

Photies of Bryn Celyn:

Just some slight thinning!

[Dave Linton]

[quote="shananna" post=37207] ... I was wondering Dave L. if you'd consider putting your 'pointers' on the forum so if anyone wants to write about Cwm Cynfal, they can send an individual letter as ILT suggests because they definitely carry more weight than a petition?[/quote]

I agree with Shan that individual representations carry more weight than petitions and I would prefer not to make an internal WMS document public.

I think a better approach is for individual representations to focus on different aspects of the scheme. The WMS response will raise specific concerns about the impact of this scheme on mine itself and the possibility of contaminated ground as a result of mining operations. Ms Thynne has put together an eloquent argument on behalf of the landscape and the ancient trackway and the damage that would be caused to these aspects by the construction phase of the scheme. However, having said that, Ian does have a copy of my information for the WMS committee, so if you feel you need to see it I suggest you approach him.

Other approaches might be
[ul]
[li]- to look at the installed electrical capacity of the scheme and make an estimate of how often this output would be achieved in practice (possibly not very often)[/li]
  [li]- to estimate what the effect of the abstraction of water would be on the appearance of the waterfall.[/li]
[/ul]

http://tohatchacrow.blogspot.com/2014/02/hydro-power-development-to-go-ahead.html?q=watkin+path+waterfall provides some interesting reading (with further links) with regard to the hydro electric scheme that was installed in Cwm Llan by the National Trust and which has taken some fo the flow from the waterfall visible from the Watkin path.

Dave

[Ian A]

Had an email from the lady concerned this morning .....



Hi Ian - I have jusst read the thread - it is all hugely helpful and I am so grateful - and releived. Thank you. And if anyone does come to have a look the offer of tea still stands. If it were accessible by an untrained old lady I would love to have a look myself I have always been fascinated by caves and tunnels and don’t mind getting wet. But today is slated to be seriously wet so probably not wise!
Regards
Pat

[Dave Tyson]

I visited the site today in fairly grim weather and found the adit about 20m below the tramway and almost in line the the surface shaft (described as a 'quarry scoop' in the archaeological report). I think the report may have deliberately chosen this term to avoid highlighting mining features which might be problematic for the project - certainly missing an adit in the vicinity is a bit of a giveaway...

The adit mouth has a narrow path running in front of it and then the ground falls away vertically to the river below. There is spoil on the slope down to the river and there may be other mine features concealed which would not be visible without recourse to ropework. The adit heads on a bearing of 310 degrees magnetic into the country rock for about 29m and ends in a collapse. There are a couple of side passages; one 22m from the entrance is about 9m long which ends in a forehead; The other 26.5m from the entrance is about 2m long and seems end at a collapsed shaft. The mine passages are about 1.5m high and about 1.2m long. I will try and post a survey later. The mine seems a bit shorter than Bick's book notes so maybe some has been lost to collapses and I couldn't find any of the described rises.

Grid refs:  
Surface shaft hole: SH73594 41645 alt 322m
             Adit:  SH73630 41633 Alt 304m

There were two lesser horseshoe bats present in the mine  and these were undisturbed. It may well be that there are other bats, like pipistrelles, lodged in cracks but I didn't look to avoid disturbance. The floor is wet and so no bat droppings were obvious.

I have posted some photos below (more on aditnow), some are rotated and one caption is wrong. I couldn't find a way of fixing this - maybe I am just being thick - PM if there is a way for me to edit/rotate or delete them!

I think there are serious issues about building a roadway above the mine. Given the passages and stopes are probably close to the surface then there is a real possibility of collapse, but a bigger problem is that of pollution.

The surface has remained undisturbed for years and so any water percolating through the workings will have leached out any copper salts in its path many years ago when no-one cared. If work disturbs the surface then the hydrology will change and the water will almost certainly find new routes through and will leach out other areas. This will add a heavy metal load which the river hasn't experienced for many years. Given NRW are seeking to clean up rivers to reduce metal pollution then I cannot see them agreeing to work which may result in new pollution of a fairly clean river.

Dave

[Dave Tyson]

Aggh! some of the photos are rotated. I had the same problem on aditnow. Is there an easy way to fix this?

Dave

[ilt]

[quote="DaveT" post=37224]..... Is there an easy way to fix this?[/quote]

No. Admin don't have time and the moderators are used to looking at the world sideways

Taken with an iPoo perhaps? irfanview is a handy (and free) little piece of graphics software. It can convert between just about any image format, resize, rotate etc. etc. I don't think the bulletin board allows changes to images once uploaded so it's always best to check they are what you expect (using something like irfanview/gimp/etc) before upload.

Back onto the planning. Thanks for the photos, I didn't realise it was that easy to get to the adit.
Letter of objection sent today.

[Anthony Britner]

Seems the Archaeologist took at face value the identity of the sites as they are determined by "The Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales" So I think we can rule out a deliberate misidentification of features by this archaeologist. So on another note, maybe someone should contact "the commission" to inform them of this probable misidentification.

regardless of the identification of such features, surely they indicate that further survey work would be required to investigate the stability of the ground in the area.

[Dave Tyson]

I am in the middle of composing an objection complete with a survey, photos etc. and I have left no doubt that the archaeologists they employed have cut loose and fast with the survey and facts. They basically ignored all the stuff which would cause a big problem and I don't think this was accidental. I suspect the people conducting the review will take a very dim view of this.

Dave