The Swansea barrage (or the Tawe barrage) was completed in 1992 creating a new marina at the mouth of the River Tawe extending the leisure boat facilities already being offered by the old South Dock.
The barrage structure includes a boat lock, spillway, fish pass and generator turbine. The turbine serves a dual use: acting as a power generator for the National Grid as well as being used to pump water back into the Tawe river system.
The River Tawe is a river in South Wales. It flows in a principally south-westerly direction for some 48 km (28 miles) from its source below Moel Feity in the Old Red Sandstone hills of the western Brecon Beacons to the Bristol Channel at Swansea. Its only large tributary is the Clydach River. The Tawe passes through a number of towns and villages including Ystradgynlais, Ystalyfera, Pontardawe, and Clydach and meets the sea at Swansea Bay below Swansea. The Tawe valley is more commonly known as the Swansea Valley.
The lower part of the valley was intensely industrialised in the 18th and 19th centuries and was especially impacted by metal refining and working and to a much lesser extent by porcelain manufacture. Large areas of the lower valley remain contaminated by industrial spoil containing copper, lead, nickel and zinc. The only significant extant relic of those times is a major nickel refinery at Clydach which is part of the Canadian company Vale Inco. The quality of the river has now greatly improved. Large salmon and trout swim up the river to spawn.
Swansea Luxury Apartments
