00:00It's not quite the weather for a swim just yet, but try telling that to this man on his way back from a dip in Poth Coal today.
00:07As summer approaches, more will surely join him, as long as the waters are clean enough, that is.
00:13It is really important that, you know, if you are with your family, that you feel safe to go into the water
00:19and that, you know, you don't have any kind of hesitation because that can put you off.
00:24I used to swim a lot, but the last time I went swimming was, like, last summer in Newton Beach, which is another beach in Poth Coal.
00:30And I just sort of, I was swimming around. I was sort of aware that it, like, you know, sometimes it's so unclean.
00:36They tell people not to swim. So I just, it kind of took the fun out of it a bit.
00:40We should be going in there without even having to think that there's any risks involved, you know, and sadly that's being spoiled.
00:45Figures from last year showed that both Welsh Water and Hafren Dhyfrdwy spent more time releasing sewage into our waterways and seas in Wales
00:53than they had the previous year. In fact, Welsh Water's figures showed a sewage discharge happening, on average, once every five minutes.
01:03That situation is unacceptable, say campaigners.
01:06At the moment, Welsh Water have set the least stretching targets in the UK for reducing the number of spills per CSO,
01:14that's a combined sewage overflow.
01:16They've set themselves a target of reducing their spills down to 30 spills per CSO.
01:22Now, the UK average is 21. So come on, Welsh Water. This is showing a real lack of ambition as far as we're concerned.
01:28Welsh Water say the country's size and geography is a factor here, but that they are investing £2.5 billion over the next five years to improve the environment.
01:38We're working really hard to reduce the number of storm overflows, but we need to recognise our starting point is far worse than many other parts of the UK.
01:47We've got more combined sewers in Wales. We've got more rainfall which falls on our land, and we've got 2,300 storm overflows in our country that we have to tackle.
02:00Now, we've only got less than 5% of the UK's population to pay the bills here.
02:07Natural Resources Wales say they're monitoring to make sure those improvements happen for the benefit of all who use our rivers, lakes and seas in Wales.
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