Industrial Past
For much of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century, the River Afan was severely polluted by the coal and iron industry. With the decline in the coal mining industry, the quality of the river improved in the 1960s and 1970s so that some salmon and sea-trout started to return to the river to spawn. A number of weirs on the river, built to sustain the industrial past, had to be made passable to allow fish to ascend the river. This required the creation of fish passes on some weirs such as on the Dock feeder weir and the demolition of others such as at Corlannau weir.
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