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Severn barrage
17:11:51 28/09/2007
Fears for birds over energy plans
The Government is to examine the feasibility of generating electricity from an enormous barrage that would be built across the Severn Estuary. The business and enterprise secretary John Hutton made the announcement at this week’s Labour Party conference.
The Government claims the barrage could generate 5 per cent of the UK’s total electricity needs by harnessing the Severn’s enormous tidal range, but critics say it will come at great cost to the environment – and wintering waders and wildfowl in particular. “We must all have open, not closed, minds about how we meet the energy needs of tomorrow,” Hutton said.
The RSPB and other conservation groups, however, say that a tidal barrage of the type proposed would destroy forever the mudflats and saltmarshes that provide feeding grounds for an estimated 65,000 birds over the winter. Species affected would include Bewick’s swan, shelduck, curlew and redshank.
“Huge amounts of new habitat will have to be created if the wildlife havens fashioned by the Severn’s tidal range are lost,” said the RSPB’s conservation director Mark Avery.
Emma Clark
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