Archive for the ‘38 Harmful Industry Exits!’ Category

Poor Lynda’s Sapling

Sunday, August 27th, 2017

Lynda loved Nature

Lynda Jacqueline lived by herself

In a small flat with a small garden bed

No electricity

Lynda was never poor wearing her straw trilby

Lynda’s tradition was young, young gorgeous young men

Who would steal a kiss

Lynda took life’s chances

Lynda would smile a sad smile

Lynda planted a sampling in her garden bed

Her peace with Nature

But Housing Commission killed it

Lynda was saddened

Lynda tried for wonderful tomorrows

This winter Lynda took a cold bath and never woke up.

 

 

This is a dedication to Lynda Jacqueline of Katoomba who passed away Friday 18th August 2017, aged 50.

Friends of Katoomba Falls ‘On The Receiving End’

Saturday, May 6th, 2017

On The Receiving End

A brief insight into ‘The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc.’ and their efforts to protect a special place.

“Gain a short, little known insight into a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens who came together led by the late Neil Stuart to become guardians of a very special natural valley in the Upper Blue Mountains.  Learn about the wealth of stories, how over 26 years locals cared for the valley’s integrity, how volunteers committed to half a lifetime of unpaid bushcare, made and sold jam at street stalls to raise funds, and fought a council Goliath.  Be shocked by the truth of what really happened in 1957 and the lifetime trauma to what was once an harmonious yet socially marginalised community subsisting on Katoomba’s fringe.

This is of living contemporary social history.  This is a controversial expose into one group’s community volunteerism, activism, environmentalism and nimbyism and social justice – thousands of hours given up to save ‘Katoomba Falls Creek Valley’, known by some as ‘The Gully’, known by others as ‘Catalina Raceway’.

This is very much an Australian story, a microcosm of Australian history and pre-history – one locally as rich as it is beautiful yet very sad.  It has impacted upon dozens of locals, old families and their ancestors. It is a story about respecting the natural, anthropological and community values of one valley.  Recent history became complex, protracted and nasty – involving displacement, forced eviction, invasion, desecration, secret deals, politics, animosities, divide-and-conquer manipulation, empty political promises, conflicting interests, threats and designs by influential millions, the various meetings, many plans of development (some silly), token consultation, one of metaphorically trying to herd cats and twenty six years of community emotional snakes and ladders.

Katoomba Falls

This presentation was delivered by a former member of ‘The Friends’ yesterday at Hobby Reach, Wentworth Falls, the home of the Blue Mountains Historical Society Inc.

For those who attended and requested the reading of the poem…

Soliloquy of a Scribbly Gum

Walhalla Mizzle

Saturday, April 8th, 2017

Thomson RiverThomson River from Walhalla Road Bridge, Victoria, Australia.

(Photo by editor 20170322 looking north)

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Walhalla Mizzle

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It’s been raining gentle all night

In crisp mountain air

I sit on my dawn porch

I gaze through the grey mizzle

To the thick treed ridge

Covering the steep spur

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Across Stringers Creek

The creek babbles far below

Feeding the mighty Thomson

Low heavy cloud envelops

Robins, larks, parrots, finches, firetails, martins or currawongs

Greet the daylight

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Walhalla’s quiet now

As it should be up here

In the wild ranges steep

The 50 year army of gold reefers

Has long been and gone

Shafters taken their bargains and fortunes

Till the ground lay barren, the hills denuded, the Thomson damned

The batteries, the boilers and engines and waterwheel are gone

The miners, drinkers, shop keepers, the shafted

The school kids who played in bad soil

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The long tunnels lie empty and dank

The dark shafts abandoned to victim ghosts

The slag heap lies as a mountainous waste

Still laced with arsenic

Stringers choked by discarded tailings

They all went back up over Little Joe, the twenty-five hundred

Back to their big smoke

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The rail remains as industrious memory

To the heyday of industry and hardship

Fifteen tons of gold taken

On the marble column count

Dividends paid out

Two fires, a flood, disease and arsenic

Dozens perished for the gold fever

As the slain to Odin

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The mizzle is pure till it touches the ground

Surrounding forest seems back

The creek tries flow as it did, crystal but dead

A heritage cancer cluster

A new breed of shafters.

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Stringers Creek WalhallaStringers Creek, from Main Road, Walhalla

(Photo by editor 20170322)

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Further Reading:

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[1]    “Elevated arsenic values can be detected up to 15 metres from the mineralised zone” –  in ‘Nature of gold mineralisation in the Walhalla Goldfield, eastern Victoria, Australia‘, 2007, by Megan A. Hough, Laurent Ailleres (School of Geosciences, Monash University), Frank P. Bierlein (Centre for Exploration Targeting, University of Western Australia, Adele Seymon (Geoscience Victoria) and Stuart Hutchin (Goldstar Resources, Rawson),
^https://www.smedg.org.au/HoughOct07.html

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[2]    ‘Approaching a century-old legacy of arsenic and mercury contamination’, 2016, by Dr. Linda Campbell, Senior Research Fellow at Environmental Science, Saint Mary’s University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, ^http://ap.smu.ca/~lcampbel/Gold.html

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[3]   ‘Soil arsenic from mining waste poses long-term health threats’, 20120322 by Dora Pearce, Research Fellow at Melbourne School of Population Health, University of Melbourne, published in The Conversation, ^http://theconversation.com/soil-arsenic-from-mining-waste-poses-long-term-health-threats-5901

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[4]   ‘What are the effects of arsenic on human health?’, ^http://www.greenfacts.org/en/arsenic/l-2/arsenic-7.htm

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[5]   ‘Is there a cancer cluster in a CQ mining town?’ , 20141113, by Rachael Conaghan (Dysart in Central Queensland), ^https://www.dailymercury.com.au/news/is-there-a-cancer-cluster-in-a-cq-mining-town-conc/2452092/

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[6]   ‘Walhalla, Dec-Jan 2012-13‘,  20130303,  ^https://daynaa2000.wordpress.com/2013/03/03/walhalla-dec-jan-2012-13/

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[7]   ‘Chronic arsenic poisoning‘, 2005, by Vanessa Ngan, Staff Writer, DermNet New Zealand – a world renowned resource all about the skin, ^http://www.dermnetnz.org/topics/chronic-arsenic-poisoning/

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[8]  ‘Thallium and Arsenic Poisoning in a Small Midwestern Town’, 2002,  by Daniel E Rusyniak at Department of Emergency Medicine and Division of Medical Toxicology, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN, USA, and R. Brent Furbee and Mark A Kirk, ^https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/articles/11867986/

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[9]    ‘Cancer incidence and soil arsenic exposure in a historical gold mining area in Victoria, Australia: A geospatial analysis‘, 2012, by Dora Claire (University of Ballarat and Melbourne School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne), Kim Dowling (Melbourne School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne) and Malcolm Ross Sim (Monash University) in Journal of Exposure Science and Environmental Epidemiology (2012) 22, 248–257,  ^http://www.nature.com/jes/journal/v22/n3/full/jes201215a.html

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[10]    ‘A cross-sectional survey on knowledge and perceptions of health risks associated with arsenic and mercury contamination from artisanal gold mining in Tanzania’, 20130125, by Elias Charles, Deborah SK Thomas, Deborah Dewey, Mark Davey, Sospatro E Ngallaba and Eveline Konje, at BMC Public Health, BioMed Central, London UK, ^https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-13-74

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[11]   ‘Arsenic mine tailings and health’, 2015, Department of Health and Human Services, Victoria State Government, ^https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/arsenic-mine-tailings-and-health

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