OPINION LETTERS

摘要

Martin J. Greenwood's tale of the mussel-choked inlet at a gas plant (15 March, p 32), reminded me of working at Carmarthen Bay Power Station in the late 1950s, where one of my jobs was monitoring chlorine levels in the turbine cooling systems. The coolant was seawater, drawn in through screens to catch large fish - which those lucky enough to work in the pump room took home - and then through the machinery before being discharged back into the sea. Chlorine was added to prevent the growth of mussels. Back then, there seemed to be no concerns about the ecological effects of this practice, which denuded large parts of the Burry estuary of much of its shore life, already devastated by a red effluent from a nearby factory. Thankfully, the power station is long gone and this beautiful stretch of coast has now become a coastal park.