We live and work from home in a quiet leafy area on the edge of The Gully on the edge of Katoomba.
Yet on a semi-regular basis different neighbours, unannounced, choose at times to suddenly start up loud machinery to break that peace and quiet.
Due common courtesy would be for a neighbour to inform nearby neighbours of pending machinery racket, but instead they couldn’t give a rats about imposing their noise pollution on neighbours.
Here are a few example snippets:
Monday · 24 Feb 2025 · 08:20…
Thursday · 20 Mar 2025 · 13:22…
Tuesday · 22 Apr 2025 · 08:36…
And, all this unwelcome noise culture is not just from selfish discourteous neighbours and their contractors.
Also, we cop similar machinery noise outside our window from:
Blue Mountains Council – roadworks, footpath works
NBN Internet concrete sawing for trenching optical fibre
Sydney Water
Electricians and other trades
Endeavour Energy’s – vegetation contractor Asplundh or Active Tree Services
Even RAAF low-flying its Hercules and Globemaster transport aircraft from Richmond Airbase at a close 500 feet directly over our home
And other private aircraft thinking they can flout the 1000 foot minimum altitude over built-up areas like ours (we know the low altitudes since we hold a commercial helicopter license)
All unannounced.
Perhaps Richmond Air Traffic Control Tower wouldn’t mind if one was to buzz the tower unannounced?
Within just a minute’s walk from The Habitat Advocate base we happened upon some wonderful local wildlife.
It was a native Blotched Blue Tongue Lizard in this case (scientific species name Tiliquanigrolutea). It was 10th February 2025 (summer) in the late hot afternoon around 6:30pm AEDT, so the sun was still up in the western sky; this given sunsets in late summer at this time of year are as late as 8 pm, some two hours hence. So, this happenstance timing made sense, but a rare sighting these days.
This particular lizard was not easy to then photograph due to it subsequently retreating from the footpath (after we went back for our camera) and retreating into the camouflage cover of the grassy verge behind for safety.
Upon our initial sighting, this lizard had been laying in the middle of the footpath sunning itself – being a cold-blooded lizard (‘ectothermically’ that is; not the human malice variety).
This one we think is female – telling from the comparatively small head size and its thicker tail root. It was not a native Shingleback Lizard (scientific species name Tiliqua rugosa) since such species has a stubbed tail land prefers the habitat plains inland from the Great Dividing Range, and are not found in the Blue Mountains region, whereas Blue Tongues are.
The location was on The Gully’s urban periphery, yet wholly environmentally within the broader Gully Water Subcatchment, where The Habitat Advocate is based. So nice to see wildlife in one’s neighbourhood – we share local wildlife’s neighbourhood.
We provide hyperlinks below to further information and clearer images about this lizard species.
Anyway, it was a pleasurably welcomed and encouraging sighting.
Such sightings however are increasingly rare around these parts these days due to Council’s habitat destruction – pretty much since Council has existed since its origins in Katoomba in 1890, then in 1947 re-branding itself Blue Mountains City Council from being a two adjacent regional municipality/shire councils. Then from November 2000 after the Blue Mountains region was declared an international World Heritage Area, this local Blue Mountains Council has bizarrely extolled its contradictory perceived virtues of being a city within a World Heritage Area – what espousing urban sprawl development and high-rises amongst Eucalyptus habitat?
We bought our house in 2000, which had there since the 1920’s. So, we did not build into bush, but rather it was long existing ‘in-town’, and so technically we just recycled and renovated it. It had had only lawn back and front, but since 2001 we have created an onsite forest and restored much local habitat on site, So, no more grass and we then gave away our lawn mower!
One also recalls that on 13th February back in 2017 around 5:30 pm during a 47o Celsius unseasonal heatwave weather event across New South Wales, observing a large native Eastern Brown Snake (scientific species Pseudonaja textilis) of almost 2 metres in length scurrying across the scorching road surface of our street into the cooler shade of our forested front garden. Well, we chose not to garden or water there for a week afterwards and warned our neighbours. However, we immediately reported this snake sighting to the volunteer-based Wildlife Rescue Service (WIRES) for safety guidance and we spoke to one of their trained snake catchers who gave us helpful and reassuring advice over the phone.
Also, when we first moved in where we are, one had to contend with a native Blue Mountains Funnel Web Spider (scientific name Hadronyche versuta) ground nest in our then unkempt backyard, also unfortunately the native Brown Broadfooted Marsupial Mouse (scientific name is Antechinus stuartii) family over the back fence that we observed, eventually sadly perished.
But it beats living in increasing sprawling concreted, treeless sterile Sydney human megalopolis.
[7] ‘Fauna Watch –Winter is not the time for hunkering down for Antechinus!, 2019-08-19, by Anne Carey, Bushcare Blue Mountains (Fauna, Natives), ^https://bushcarebluemountains.org.au/fauna-watch/
So, following the loud noise disturbance from the Katoomba Carrington Hotel on Saturday 26th October 2024, and from our failed attempt to chat with the hotel’s festival organiser, who immediately ordered us off his premises, we notify local Blue Mountains Council on the following Monday 28th October when Council is back at work.
We lodged a Customer Service Request (CSR 514828) to Council and request a dialogue about this matter.
This Carrington’s owner had setup some brass band with additional amplified music situated in the guest car park that played over towards adjoining residences, rather than having previously utilised their approved festival space (of equivalent size) on the other side of The Carrington’s grounds in the more suitable bustling retail heart of uptown Katoomba just off high street Katoomba Street.
We received no response from back from Council by Wednesday 30th October. So we emailed out complaint to Council in writing as follows, and this isn’t the first time we’ve raised this intrusively loud amplified noise issue with this Carrington owner.
Attention: Council’s Programme Leader for Health and Compliance
RE: Noise Complaints – Carrington Hotel amplified music | CSR 514828/13 Feb 2024 | CSR 558418/28-Oct-2024
I hereby again complain a second time to you about the amplified noise coming from The Carrington Hotel premises…
Last time, on 13th February this year I had previously raised this noise problem with both The Carrington management via its Reception and then local Council. A day later I happend to then receive a phone call from one of the joint owners of the Carrington Hotel identifying himself to me as Michael Brischetto. I explained to him about my genuine concerns about the very loud amplified music audible from my place and our conversation then was amicable.
Now we have another noise disturbance incident.
All I seek in this matter is a right to quiet enjoyment of where I live in an historical and typically quiet residential neighbourhood. I am concerned about this new noise becoming a precedent and a more frequent occurrence if not nipped in the bud.
My records and expressed concerns support my real worries about what this ‘new noise’ pollution could lead to, to risk destroying our peaceful home environment:
1. I refer to my email to you 7th March 2024 about the loud amplified music noise at The Carrington Hotel car park off Parke Street in Katoomba, and also from last Saturday 26th October 2024.
2. This loud noise was clearly audible to me at my home, being situated three streets away to the west in Kundibar Street. The noise started in the morning, and on and off, continued into the night. The first I heard it, it was a loud small brass band playing with a heavy bass guitar reverberating deep sound that was audible from inside my home. I happened to have been ill that day and I was asleep in bed, and this noise woke me up.
3. This amplified noise could be heard as far away as Waimea Street in The Gully, more than 250 metres away westward through this residential precinct. I had a walk around the block that day and I confirm this. [See attached ‘Residential Proximity to Noise Map’]
Residential Proximity to Noise
4. I then went to inspect where the noise from coming from and found it emanating from The Carrington Hotel’s car park off Parke Street, used again for a music festival – this time The Carrington’s own ‘Oktoberfest’ festival involving live bands (amplified music) and selling beer in The Carrington’s car park.
5. Again, as a local resident, I consider it highly inappropriate and disrespectful that amplified noise be allowed to occur adjacent to residential homes and audible into the back streets beyond.
6. Generally, The Carrington Hotel’s owners permit public access on site to the Grounds, Front Verandah, Reception, the Cocktail Bar, its adjoining toilets, Lounge and Dining spaces. On this particular Saturday, public access was granted to the car park’s upper level where the festival was taking place under a large marquee. So as a member of the public I was free to walk around the grounds and the upper level of the car park and to freely take ‘tourist’ photos.
This I did.
7. I noticed the event’s signage on the day read that it was open to general public. I also read the event promotional banner above the car park lower-level eastern entrance read ‘Free admission’.
8. As supporting evidence, I attach photos I took last Saturday on foot as well as my audio recording (software of which does not reflect the true loudness of the actual volume).
9. For your reference, also as supporting evidence I attach copies of excerpts of The Carrington’s public website specific to this event ’Oktoberfest’. SOURCE: ^https://thecarrington.com.au/whats-on/oktoberfest/ [Accessed: 30-Oct-2024]
10. My understanding is that The Carrington a few years back (perhaps 2015) gained Council approval to double the size of its car park by converting it into a two-storey car park. But this car park second-story development was surely not approved as a venue for holding festivals, concerts, serving alcohol and encouraging large crowd gathering, nor for playing loud amplified music. Is this the case?
11. The Carrington’s website advertised this event to occur between 11am and 9pm on the Saturday. Did Council give approval to The Carrington Hotels owners for this event and amplified music?
12. The juxtaposition of this car park is directly across the street from residential homes. Indeed, these homes at situated in a heritage housing conservation precinct dating back to the 1870s. It includes heritage listed ‘North’s Estate’ which pre-dates The Carrington Hotel opening of 1883. This Norths Estate’ is where I live and have done so in residential quiet enjoyment continually since 2001.
13. The current owners of The Carrington Hotel date their ownership to 2004.
14. I request a copy of council’s consent conditions for this car park development, since I am an adversely affected neighbour to this development use.
15. Did Council approve the use of the car park for festivals including loud amplified noise that could be audible into the adjoining residential area many streets away?
16. On this occasion, I walked up to the pedestrian entrance to this festival in the car park and met a man in a silly pixie hat and costume wearing sunglasses (my photo attached) there gatekeeping the festival’s entrance, who then identified himself as one of the joint owners of The Carrington. It was Michael Brischetto again.
I expressed my concerns to Mr Brischetto politely about the loud amplified noise, pointing out that I live just a few streets away.
But he was quite rude to me, refusing to listen to me, and recalled my previous complaint from the February festival and realised I was the same person who had complained then.
Mr Brischetto then immediately ordered me to “Get off my property!” So I immediately did so.
17. So, having tried to reason with Michael Brischetto unsuccessfully, I now complain to Council about this noise.
18. As before, I request such loud festival events not be staged in The Carrington’s purpose-built car park off Katoomba’s Parke Street, but rather at the dedicated grassed lawn area (below), which has been successfully used previously for such festivals as the Lady Luck Festival (of the past 14 years) , which is more appropriately located off Katoomba Street in the heart of retail Katoomba, some 200 metres east of the car park.
I am sure that both The Carrington Hotel owners and Council could readily work together toward a mutually suitable arrangement for such ongoing festivals, so as not to upset local residents like me and my family by it using its unintended car park near homes.
19. This time, I request Council actually contacts the owners of The Carrington about this matter, notifies them of my complaint and that Council does something to address it, ideally prohibit such loud amplified music from being played from its car park off Parke Street please.
20. I am prepared to go public on this matter, and indeed pursue this matter legally.
From our personal experience, we would NOT describe The Carrington Hotel as being a good neighbour in Katoomba where we live.
On Saturday late morning 26th October 2024, from where we live in The Gully Catchment of Katoomba, we were dozing at home as not feeling particularly well.
Suddenly, we then get this pounding deep bass sound reverberating from somewhere not far away. It was so loud that it became impossible to sleep through. Where was it coming from?
Ours is a quiet residential neighbourhood set in the oldest heritage precinct of the Blue Mountains. Our street dates to the 1870s, even before The Carrington Hotel of 1883 up on the hill.
So we get up and dress to investigate the noisy racket. We shortly find the source just three short streets away. We reproduce two samples below, but the volume is ten times louder that what the AMR software on our iPhone has captured. Most of the band playing sounds out of tune.
It’s that bloody Carrington Hotel again, thumping its amplified festival music from what is supposed to be its large car park rooftop on nearby Parke Street on the top of the hill in our township of Katoomba.
We had previously raised our concerns about a similar car park festival episode directly with one of The Carrington’s joint owners on a previous occasion back in February 2024, when some other concert started up on top of the same car park playing loud amplified music (multiple large stage speakers pointing in direction of our home) so audible as to be heard down into The Gully, half a kilometre away.
On this occasion, 26th October, it was some blood brass band amplified up at full volume, again! WTF!
Yet there are residential homes just across Parke Street, just metres away from the stage where the band is playing, like ours about 300 metres away from the now fabricated temporary stage.
This is what we heard and saw on the car park second storey upon our investigation after having just woken up…
This is just not fair! A festival with loud amplified music set up juxtaposed to residential homes? It’s so selfish and arrogant and it’s not right. It’s hardly respecting the rights of immediate locals like us to our quiet enjoyment. It’s a noise impost.
And it’s also so unnecessary that this particularly large accommodation hotel with options of utilising its multiple internal entertainment spaces and on such an extensive site, should resort to re-purposing its purpose built guest car park into a festival venue and so cause annoyance to locals immediately across the street (Parke Street) and on to adjoining quiet back streets like ours within earshot.
We say this because The Carrington Hotel has ready onsite access also to a similarly sized level grassed area at the front of the hotel site just off retail Katoomba Street. The Carrington has long used this level open lawned space for various festivals and events. It’s a perfect location in the retail heart of Katoomba!
The Lady Luck Festival has been run for the past 14 years using both this marquee for dancing plus the inside of the Carrington’s sizeable ballroom.
So, then why move the Carrington’s marquee from here in town to the rear car park opposite residences?
Today, unable to sleep and feeling a bit crook, we approached the entrance to the car park festival and briefly expressed our concerns to some bloke in a pixie hat and joker costume about the loud amplified noise and that we lived just a few streets away. The bloke happened to be one of The Carrington’s joint owners in disguise. He promptly got agitated with one’s comments and then immediately ordered me to leave his property, as in “bugger off”!
The Carrington’s nasty pixie (left). Note the body language.
As a Katoomba resident where we live since 2001, we provide some instructional background.
A few years back, Blue Mountains Council granted The Carrington Hotel development approval to double the size of its car park off Parke Street on its very large site. The approval was to build a second storey car park above the existing car park so as to double off-street parking capacity for its in-house guests. This followed substantial renovations of many rooms which so increased the hotel’s accommodation capacity.
We have no problem about The Carrington Hotel’s enlarged car park being used as a car park for its staying guests. The investment into restoring, upgrading and diversifying the Carrington continues to wonderfully appreciated for Katoomba. As long locals we know of no other tourism establishment that has done so this this extent. This is a credit to its joint owners.
The car park concrete structure is about the size of a narrow-elongated basketball court and further dominates the hotel’s 4 storey high-rise landscape on top of the hill in uptown Katoomba.
This festival is the Carrington’s own Oktoberfest on 26th October since 2023. We were away at the time that year.
But why a decision for a remote miniature Oktoberfest festival in Katoomba outside Sydney, when there has long been a huge one in Sydney’s Botanic Gardens annually every October attracting thousands? It’s held on the very same day on the 26th!
So why the hell would tourists in Sydney not conveniently head close by to the real big deal in Sydney, to instead choose a 4-hour return train ride to The Carrington car park in Katoomba for a half-pint to bad music? No chance!
Sydney’s ‘Oktoberfest in the Gardens’ 26th October
A big double storey concrete car park is one thing, but then we discover they’re starting to use it for ticketed music festivals and even lease it out to independent festival organisers. So they’re profiting from festivals despite never having had such Council approval to do so. We would have objected had the development application plans included converting the car park into a venue for external festival hire.
This is the car park in question showing its driveway entrance off Parke Street. The brass band is playing behind the car park gates on a stage behind the calico screen inside the temporary marquee.
The following aerial view of this precinct in Katoomba (Google Maps) shows the relevant juxtaposition of The Carrington hotel with its car park used as a band stage (shown in red), plus the remaining section of the car park for audience seating and outdoors drinking of German beers in large jugs.
It also shows the proximity of the residential housing and also the similar sized garden lawn (yellow rectangle) situated within the Carrington grounds off Katoomba Street.
The Carrington Hotel and its juxtaposition
Same problem, different camera angle. Who approved a car park for festival hire?
So why doesn’t the Carrington simply return to using the Council-approved outdoor entertainment space it had purposely re-developed on its flat lawned area right in the retail heart of Katoomba, rather than pissing off local residents to the west of the hotel.
Some big business people presume they can do what they want and bugger everyone else? Perhaps the owners would benefit more by investing quality time researching negotiation pathways with local Council to mitigate the costs of returning to utilising the grassed area for events as before and the Carrington’s similarly sized large ballroom. But diversifying into illegally using the hotel’s guest car park to hock for event leasing to external festival organisers for a pittance return?
Indeed the event is promoted as “free admission” as per the banner outside (see below). So what its the point of this event? The musicians would not be performing for free. Only the beer it seems, is for sale. So the whole thing appears to be a loss making exercise. Is this for the indulgence of the pixie who just likes getting dress down and drinking beer? Or is he just wanting to piss off the neighbours?
The event banner reads “Free Admission”
Of course, while the car park has been leased out, many of The Carrington’s in-house guests will be denied the brochured off-street parking, so be relegated to use Council’s on street paid parking, costing over $100 per day. We suggest this pet project to annoy locals is a false economy. So as Katoomba long-time locals, we wont be frequenting The Carrington any time soon. The actions of The Carrington are so unneighbourly.
The big concern we have is that this illegal use of the car park repurposed for festivals, risks setting a precedent for drunken crowds and on a more frequent basis. The toilets are not convenient to the car park. The only toilets are well inside the hotel itself, passed reception, passed the bar if you now where to find them. So what is preventing drunken party goers after downing a full German beer jug or three, desperate for a leak, taking advance of the adjacent brick walls of the adjoining Blue Mountains Cultural Centre and the front fences of local homes to urinate into the wee hours. There are no toilets in the car park. Is the car park a licensed venue to serve alcohol? We’ve not heard.
What is to come if this is allowed to snowball into a more regular Carrington Hotel Booze Fest, fuelled by incoming bus loads of yobbos on bucks nights.
Surely, no Katoomba local here wants this problem. The festival lease brain-snap for a re-purposing of the car park needs to stopped in it tracks before it morphs out of control!
As if Katoomba doesn’t already have enough booze outlets!
Where is local Blue Mountains Council in all this?
Comment:
Judy Harding:
“I text the Carrington saying I was considering staying there but have been told it’s too noisy because of the bands playing in the car park so I have decided to stay in Leura.”
[2] ‘Oktoberfest in the Gardens‘, Botanic Gardens of Sydney, ^https://www.botanicgardens.org.au/whats-on/oktoberfest-gardens, Australia’s biggest and best Oktoberfest celebration returns to Sydney in 2024, Abstract: “Inspired by a love of the traditional Bavarian festival and great beer. Oktoberfest in the Gardens Sydney features two massive beer halls, authentic German food stalls, roving performers, sideshow alley, silent disco and an eclectic mix of entertainment and competitions across multiple stages throughout the afternoon and evening. Taste your way across Europe with a large selection of imported German beer, cider, wine and a range of other beverages.”
This is yet another example of neglected stormwater runoff maintenance by Blue Mountains {city} Council. Its in-creek water pollution trap (vane style) device is situated just above Katoomba Falls (left of photo).
Our editor standing in front of large piles of sand pollution re-directed out of Katoomba Falls Creek by an in-creek pollution control device (left). [Photo by The Habitat Advocate, taken Thursday 30th May-2024.]
This pollution detritus trap has, from our very local experience over two decades, been typically full of destroyed native vegetation debris caused by (a) torrential rain events, and (b) bushland clearing (deforestation). It has also been observed typically full of siltation from (a) upstream creek bank erosion through Maple Grove, (b) from housing construction sand and graded topsoil, and (c) from unfiltered urban stormwater waste ignored by Council since it was established first as the Municipality of Katoomba in 1889.
We have lived in The Gully Water Catchment since 2001. The Gully Water Catchment includes all land with watercourses and natural drainage flowing to Katoomba Falls, and we have taken a keen interest in this natural place.
Katoomba Falls Creek Catchment as it was then called in 1993. [SOURCE: The Bell Report]
From our observed experience as local environmental activists, Council’s ongoing management culture is such that it focuses on the capital works projects, obtains external grant funding (usually from the NSW Government) but then fails to budget and resource the ongoing maintenance of such capital works projects. This Baramy Trap is another case in point.
We repeatedly observe this pollution trap full and overflowing for months at a time, so the trap overflows and the continuing detritus flows downstream into the downstream Kedumba River to supply Greater Sydney’s drinking water to Sydney’s artificial Lake Burragorang for Sydney and a Greater Sydney so scarily morphing beyond. Currently this pollution trap has been full of sand sediment for many months.
The above photo shows the concrete ramp down to the pollution trap for access by a small front-end mechanical loader designed to remove the sand and debris pollution into a waiting tip-truck.
A Bobcat more suited to a construction site or at a beach as in this example photo. But at Blue Mountains {city} Council it’s Missing-In-Action.
Council is supposed to maintain it and clean it out on an ‘as-needed‘ basis periodically, but it doesn’t. The following is an extract of Baramy’s terms and conditions for this pollution device once installed.
We obtained a copy of these terms and conditions back in 2004 when The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (the Friends) sought a quote for a similar but smaller pollution device (4 m long x 2.1 m wide) previously to be constructed in the same creek further upstream. Baramy’s quote came in at $26,000 and we referred this initiative for action/grant funding to Council – it being the custodian of this community land and the creek water catchment. But Council ignored it.
In this case Council is the “customer” having paid to have this much larger device constructed by Baramy Engineering in this different location much further downstream. It would have cost Council double, constructed probably around 2005 from one’s memory.
Council’s culture
Council has form of having its other non-environmental priorities, such as its latest newfangled ‘Planetary Health Initiative’ to showcase its environmental stewardship, when it is just more greenwashing.
Previously, all such debris, sediment and stormwater pollution into the creek used to just flow over Katoomba Cascades and further downstream over Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River below and southward through the Jamison Valley.
Katoomba Cascades during full flood, situated about 100 metres downstream of the pollution trap. [SOURCE: Photo by Brigitte Grant, in article ‘Flood photos: Three-day drenching’ 22nd March 2021, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper]
Katoomba Falls in full flood after days of heavy rain. The falls are situated about 300 metres downstream of the pollution trap. [SOURCE: Photographer unknown, in article ‘Police to co-ordinate evacuation of visitors trapped in Megalong Valley following landslip’ 4th April 2024, by Damien Madigan in Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper]
By the way, Upper Mountains sewage design (Katoomba, Leura, Wentworth Falls) back between 1907 and the 1990’s also flowed by iron piping down into the Jamison Valley to the former Leura Sewage Treatment Plant (historic image below) situated just by Leura Falls Creek between Echo Point and Sublime Point. The iron piping still can be seen along hiking tracks down the escarpment – the reason for the hiking tracks actually being first constructed.
We estimate that the current sand quantity filling this particular Creek Pollution Trap would be twenty cubic metres at least. We reported the problem to Council the day we took the first photo above – receiving Council’s Customer Service Request reference #533082.
We’re not the only locals having noticed this particular in-creek pollution trap full. Here’s another documented event of the very same pollution trap in February 2020. It was during the start of Australia’s East Coast Low events associated with the La Niña oscillating weather pattern:
Local Blue Mountains Aboriginal Gundungurra Elder, Mr David King, posting his video on Google YouTube protesting this exact same problem back in 2020. He even likened it Bondi Beach! [SOURCE]
This pollution trap’s exact location is situated beside Cliff Drive in Katoomba on the southern (downstream) side of the road at the road culvert over Katoomba Falls Creek. See the aerial photographic map below showing the yellow star.
An aerial photo of the 100 ha extent of The Gully Water Catchment juxtaposed upstream of this pollution trap. (NB. The “Katoomba Falls” photo label is incorrectly shown on this image, being rather just a Google nominal reference on the roadside. [SOURCE: Google Maps aerial photo, 2024]
This in-creek pollution trap was constructed by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd of Katoomba for Council.
The Baramy Vane Trap showing the two rows of vertical galvanised steel vanes in the creek line that divert debris to the concrete trap device on the right.
The construction timing was a few years or so following The Greater Blue Mountains Area (1 million km2) being inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage list on 29th November 2000. Katoomba Falls flows into the Jamison Valley within this World Heritage area. The Jamison Valley, below these falls (and others) is also part of the drinking water catchment leading to Warragamba Dam supplying an ever-expanding Greater Sydney (current population approaching 5.5 million) adjoining the Blue Mountains region.
It is the researched opinion of The Habitat Advocate that this World Heritage listing was more about the human utility of protecting the value of Sydney’s drinking water in perpetuity, than it was about protecting the Eucalyptus forests of the Blue Mountains.
Katoomba Falls in the centre of this photo. The Gully Water Catchment upstream feeds natural and stormwater to these falls. The area covers an estimated 100 hectares a passes through a small valley up on the Blue Mountains plateau. This valley includes bushland and increasingly more and more housing development.
Notably, the sand type in this pollution trap appears to be not the naturally river sand, but consistently all the same light colour of Concrete Sand type used commercially in construction.
Concrete Sand
Concrete Sand is a coarser sand variety, pivotal in construction use to create strong and durable concrete structures. It’s typically made from crushed quartz, which gives it a rougher texture, enhancing the binding properties in concrete mixtures. This sand type is indispensable for laying robust foundations, constructing driveways, and forming sidewalks. This is exactly what is going on in The Gully Catchment upstream of this creek pollution trap.
Whereas the natural creek-bed of Katoomba Falls Creek is comprised of small pebbles. This editor knows this from being local to Katoomba Falls Creek Valley and having voluntarily performed Streamwatch quality monitoring of Katoomba Falls Creek for five years (2004-2008) on behalf of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, Inc. reporting to the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA) within the New South Wales Governments Sydney Water department.
An example of the characteristics of creek-bed pebbles typically found naturally on the creek bed of Katoomba Falls Creek and other nearby watercourses – yet sadly beneath the years of construction sand sedimentation pollution from various identified housing construction sites throughout this plateaued catchment.
Council doesn’t analyse the sand to determine its source. Council doesn’t fine the polluters and issue a stop work court order. Council doesn’t employ a hydrologist or geotechnical engineer on its books. Yet where is all the housing constrution taking place in the Blue Mountains? Upstream of the World Heritage area.
In our view, Council is unfit in delegated stewardship as custodian of the geographic plateau of the Blue Mountains Local Government Area (LGA) atop the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area from its atrocious record of failings. So long as this pollution control device is full and overflowing, sand and debris is flowing downstream over Katoomba Cascades and Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River. Parks Service (‘NPWS’) doesn’t monitor pollution levels or water quality in Kedumba River down in the Jamison Valley.
Council doesn’t enforce sediment controls are housing development sites upstream in The Gully Water Catchment (Katoomba Falls Creek Valley).
There are current two large housing subdivision sites contribution to sedimentation of the creek.
Some 13 odd hectares of fragile native bush surrounding an upland brook between Stuarts & Wellington Roads is to be bulldozed into a 53 cluster housing subdivision.
Bulldozing all the top soil throughout this side creek valley to Katoomba Falls Creek (Kedumba River). [Photo by Editor, Sunday 26th May 2024]
[5] ‘Pollution Control Device‘ quote prepared for ‘Frank Walford Park Bushcare’ (Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc), 2004-09-27, by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd, 7 pages.
On Friday 26th April 2024, at 1:10 am I saw a fox again on Murri Street Katoomba that scurried out of The Gully across the road into a nearby property.
I reported this to Blue Mountains Council as the land owner of The Gully, but only to be given a run around by Council’s call centre staff, claiming that protocol is that such pests are not Council’s responsibility. I was told to instead phone some Local Land Service on 1300 795 299, so I did. The person there said I then had to phone Biosecurity Officer ‘Jacob’ on 0438 073 749. So I did, but I had to leave a message.
What a cop out by Blue Mountains Council!
So then I phoned back Council again and spoke to a different person in customer service and reported the same problem of the fox sighting in Murri Street.
This time I was given a CSR 529097, whatever that may come to.
Council is all care, greenwashing and no responsibility.
It’s Autumn in the Greater Blue Mountains, and the New South Wales Government’s bush arsonists are out in full swing deliberately setting fire to native habitat at every opportunity. Governmental ‘Habitat Reduction Season‘!
Is this pastime not comparable with the antiquated British imported tradition of the ‘Duck Season‘ – killing NATIVE ducks that is – just for sport. It’s the very same time of year!
“Capital climes for rough shooting old sport, what! Live on peg, we ought to bag a few dozen before tea.”
On Monday 25th March 2024, the NSW Government’s National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) published a media release about its continuing “hazard” reduction burns across the Blue Mountains National Park. It read as follows (main extracts):
“The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) has announced plans for an 850-hectare hazard reduction burn in the Glenbrook area of Blue Mountains National Park, set to commence on 26 March, weather conditions permitting. This preventive measure is part of a strategic effort to reduce the risk of wildfires and protect surrounding communities.
Scheduled to unfold over consecutive days, the operation targets the reduction of naturally accumulated fuel loads in the park. The primary aim is to provide strategic protection for the residential areas of Glenbrook, Lapstone, and Mulgoa against potential future wildfires.
…This burn is a component of the comprehensive hazard reduction program carried out by NPWS each year, often in collaboration with the Rural Fire Service and Fire and Rescue NSW. These operations are crucial for managing vegetation fuel loads and reducing the intensity and spread of potential wildfires.
The planned hazard reduction burns in Blue Mountains National Park underscore the ongoing commitment of NSW authorities to wildfire risk management and community safety. By taking proactive measures to manage fuel loads, the NPWS aims to mitigate the impact of wildfires, ensuring the protection of both natural landscapes and residential communities.”
Our comments to this bush arson justification spin doctoring:
The above is bush arson propaganda by contracted consultants with Communications Degrees, justifying the perpetual decimation of Australia’s native habitat since the first day of colonisation and usurpation of the continent since 1788. Nothing has changed or is likely to. Surviving intact wilderness has become reduced to mere islands. Just go to Google Maps [See our extract map below]
“850 hectares” is an area equivalent to about 30km x 30km (√ 850ha). In relative terms, that’s three times the size of Sydney’s CBD, a native habitat area capacity for many fauna;
“preventive measure is part of a strategic effort to reduce the risk of wildfires” – this is because when wildfires do occur the NSW Government invariably fails to (A) detect, (B) respond and (C) extinguish the ignitions promptly whilst small and controllable. It has an attitude that native habitat has a lower value than human habitat. In contrast, the urban Fire and Rescue Service is tasked to (B) respond and (C) extinguish the ignitions involving human property immediately, and unlike their unpaid volunteer Rural Fire Service (RFS) counterparts, they get paid to do it;
“protect surrounding communities” – this means human communities that have been built encroaching more and more into and usurping native habitat. These human “communities” are the only focus of the NPWS and its support RFS. Under this culture, wildlife communities matter not, irrespective of any threatened species impacted/killed. This attitude belies an antiquated anthropocentric mentality. Neither the NPWS nor the RFS employ an Ecologist. They just don’t care about protecting Ecology – in this case forest ecology;
“the operation targets the reduction of naturally accumulated fuel loads in the park“. That’s right, the NPWS as delegated custodial organisation ‘manager’ of the Blue Mountains National Park treats native habitat and its dependent fauna within such national parks in NSW (one of some 800) instead as “fuel loads” to be reduced to sterile urban park status. NPWS should be relegated to managing urban parks like Hyde Park in Sydney’s CBD;
“The primary aim is to provide strategic protection for the residential areas of Glenbrook, Lapstone, and Mulgoa against potential future wildfires.” – this is a reinforcement approach of our Point 3;
“…This burn is a component of the comprehensive hazard reduction program carried out by NPWS each year, often in collaboration with the Rural Fire Service and Fire and Rescue NSW.” – this is a reinforcement approach of our Point 3;
“These operations are crucial for managing vegetation fuel loads and reducing the intensity and spread of potential wildfires.” – “crucial” for whom? An expanding Sydney human housing sprawl? So the NSW Government’s volunteer and under-resourced RFS has less forested native habitat risk and so less work to do in the event of wildfires because year-on-year there is less forested native habitat left. Perpetuation that long term strategy, there will eventually be little or no native habitat left across NSW. So down the track a future NSW Government may well decide that the RFS is therefore no longer needed and so make the organisation redundant. Sydney that has been deliberately morphed by successive governments (state and federal) into the ‘Greater Sydney Region‘ has, on paper, swallowed whole the ‘Blue Mountains Region‘ (see NSW Planning map below) , presuming its world heritage status is now just outer-upper western Sydney parkland for the rezoning offing. Allowing the 2019 megafires to incinerate 80% of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, clearly has achieved the NSW Government’s intended devaluation of the UNESCO recognised “Outstanding Universal Value” of all the Eucalypts, and is wholly consistent with a usurpation agenda for an even Greater Sydney megalopolis.
“The planned hazard reduction burns in Blue Mountains National Park underscore the ongoing commitment of NSW authorities to wildfire risk management and community safety. By taking proactive measures to manage fuel loads, the NPWS aims to mitigate the impact of wildfires, ensuring the protection of both natural landscapes and residential communities.” The spin doctoring clearly by outsourced consultants with Communication Degrees is palpable here. It’s more repetition of contrived persuasive terms: “planned hazard reduction burns”, underscore the “ongoing commitment of NSW authorities to wildfire risk management and community safety”. Ask the residents of Mount Wilson who lost their homes by RFS reckless arson in 2019 on this point! “taking proactive measures to manage fuel loads”, “the NPWS aims to mitigate the impact of wildfires”, “ensuring the protection of both natural landscapes and residential communities.” What so burning the natural landscapes to protect them? Seriously? In truth it is all about avoiding bad publicity when the RFS lights a high risk fire on 14th December 2014 causing homes to be incinerated like at Mount Wilson. “The state coroner has confirmed that a bushfire that destroyed homes in Mt Wilson, Mt Tomah, Berambing and Bilpin in December 2019 was caused after a planned RFS backburn jumped Mt Wilson Road.” [SOURCE: ‘Bushfire inquiry: Mt Wilson backburn to blame‘, BMG, 2nd April 2024]
RFS MOUNT WILSON ARSON: Sam Ramaci, like several of his neighbours, claims a back-burn lit by the RFS on December 14, 2019, was responsible for the destruction of his cool room, tractor and the property that was to fund his retirement. “If they hadn’t started the back-burn, my house would be still standing,” he said. (The NSW Government has refused to compensate him and others (nor even apologise) for the reckless misjudgment of its RFS – a NSW Government agency. Who can afford a class action? [Go to Video Link]
The Mount Wilson fire was the sixth backburn to escape along the southern containment line that was intended to protect the upper Blue Mountains from the Gospers Mountain Fire.
What sane person would join the Rural Fire Starters?
Bush arsonists have a psychological compulsion to set fire to see fire . It’s a ritual – they’re eyes light up. “Behold, The Fiery Cross !...”
NPWS is beholden to NSW Planning
A headline environmental protection agency that is supposed to be caring for national parks reporting to a state land use planning authority (aka Development). Is this a warped governmental portfolio conflict of interest of what? Liberal-Labor-Liberal…? Same Same.
The Regional Map of NSW according to the NSW Government’s Department of Planning and Environment fiefdom in 2024. Note that the Blue Mountains Region no longer exists, but has become annexed by the ever expanding ‘Greater Sydney Region’ in the mindset of Macquarie Street’s urban expansionism campaign. Mount Victoria a Sydney suburb now? Lookout Broken Hill!
Deforestation of Australia since colonisation and its usurpation from 1788. Remnant native forests and their native habitat have been decimated to ecologically unsustainable islands. The entire pre-colonial eastern seaboard of the continent was originally blanketed by native forests unbroken, extending about 600km inland. [SOURCE Google Maps – satellite view, April 2024]
It’s no wonder that Australia continues its record of perpetuating the world’s worst rate of wildlife extinctions. It’s akin to countries like Madagascar. It’s all hell bent on serving the Human Plague Order, currently 8.1 Billion! and in 2024 growing (and demanding more) by $75 million p.a. The current population of Australia is 26,654,200 as of Monday, April 29, 2024. Compare Australia’s Federation census of 1901 counted 3,773,801 people across Australia. [Check: Census Bureau Projects U.S. and World Populations on New Year’s Day; and ^https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/]
But wait there’s more bush arson planned…
An update last Friday, 26th April 2024 (just days ago), the NSW Government’s environmental department website again posted a media release advising of its further planned “Hazard reduction burn in Blue Mountains National Park” for the weekend.
It read as follows:
“The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) with assistance from the NSW Rural Fire Service is conducting a hazard reduction burn in Blue Mountains National Park starting Sunday 28 April, weather permitting.
Staff from Metro South West and Blue Mountains regions undertaking the Pisgah Ridge hazard reduction burn near Glenbrook in the Blue Mountains National Park The hazard reduction burn will focus on an area south of Woodford, in the mid-mountains, and cover a total area of about 400 hectares. The burn aims to reduce fuel hazards and assist in the protection of property in the surrounding Woodford, Hazelbrook and Linden areas.
Fire trails around the burn area, including Bedford Creek, will be closed to the public, along with the Murphy’s Glen camping and day use area. The campground will be reopen when it is safe to do so.
Smoke may be seen in the area for up to a week after the initial operation.
The burn is one of many hazard reduction operations undertaken by NPWS each year, many with the assistance of the NSW Rural Fire Service (RFS) and Fire and Rescue NSW.
All burns around the state are coordinated with the NSW RFS to ensure the impact on the community is assessed at a regional level.
People with known health conditions can sign up to receive air quality reports, forecasts and alerts via email or SMS from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water. For health information relating to smoke from bushfires and hazard reduction burns, visit NSW Health or Asthma Australia.
More information on hazard reduction activities is available at NSW Rural Fire Service and the NSW Government’s Hazards Near Me website and app.”
Asthma sufferers? – NSW Government care factor?
Carbon emissions? – NSW Government care factor?
10th December 2019: NPWS world heritage Eucalyptus woodsmoke enveloping Sydney from what started as an abandoned pile burn off Army Road near Gospers Mountain in the distant Wollemi NP two months prior on 26th October 2019. She’ll be right, eh NPWS boss David Crust?
The RFS is one of the planet’s highest emitters of airborne carbon particulates by way of causing mass wood-smoke by repeatedly lighting bushfires and ignoring wildfires. Wood smoke we feel is a tad more polluting than humans exhaling carbon dioxide. But then how many humans on the planet?
Yet the climate change cult remains quiet on this more serious global problem. Why so selective about a lesser pollutant in the hysterical ideology that has morphed from ‘Global Warming‘ (Wallace Smith Broecker’s term of 1975) to ‘The Greenhouse Effect‘ (Mike Hulme’s term in 1994) to ‘Climate Change Scientology‘ (U.S. National Academies of 2014) to currently ‘Climate Crisis‘ actually predating the former (U.S Vice President Al Gore of 2007).
The RFS and NPWS press on regardless – as it’s not carbon dioxide, so all good!
Here’s the latest bush arson schedule to further set fire to the still unburnt native habitat of the Blue Mountains:
RFS:“It’s ok love, it’s good for the bush. She’ll be right.”
It’s an age old mentality of the fox charged to look after the chickens. Both the NPWS and RFS have a cultural attitude that the national parks are NOT to be protected, despite the NPWS delegated to so-called manage NATIONAL parks across New South Wales (NSW). That is despite the Rural Fire Service (RFS) charged with putting out wildfires.
That perverted culture is conditioned to regard native habitat only as a ‘fuel’ that burns and so NOT habitat but a ‘hazard’ to be controlled and burned to prevent it burning. If there is no habitat left, then the meathead rationale, no hazard, so job done! Of recent times the spin doctors in government seconded as contractors with Communications Degrees (aka the art of spin) have softened the community sell of these ‘hazard reductions’ to ‘prescribed burns” to justify and take some noble authority from on high that the BUSH WAS ORDERED TO BE BURNED, WE HAVE NO CHOICE !
All their fire trucks are filled with more flammable liquids light a bushfire than water to put it out. ‘RFS’ should stand for for Rural Fire Starters.
Blue Mountains World Heritage?
Eventually the bush grows back but with a vastly different flora community make up. The biodiversity is gone. The wildlife don’t come back from the dead.
One of countless Koalas tragically burned to death in her native habitat during the Blue Mountains megafires of 2019. They won’t come back. [This website is not suitable for children to view]
This native Koala would have looked something like this:
National parks throughout Australia over the 236 years since colonisation and its continent-wide deforestation, land use destruction and introduced bushfires, have consistently and hatefully made Australia’s ecological landscape very very quiet and devoid of wildlife.
The 2019 mega bushfires of NSW that the NPWS and RFS let get out of control over months, wiped out 80% of the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, including rare remnant koala communities and hosts of other at-risk wildlife and their special native habitat that NPWS has no clue of the statistical losses. NPWS does not manage, it mismanages, else just oversees politically drive projects like multi-million dollar tourists track upgrades to benefit humans. The NSW State Government tasked to look after UNESCO world heritage on behalf of the Australia Government?
This habitat reduction regime is to burn the remaining 20% that didn’t cop the 2019 wildfire megablaze. They call this “stewardship”? All trust in the NSW Government to protect world heritage has long gone out the window.
The ‘NPWS’ is a misnomer
‘NPWS” is an abbreviation for the National Parks and Wildlife Service in the state of New South Wales.
Logo of the NPWS
The problem is that this government bureaucracy is supposed to be the governmental (public) custodian for national parks is misleading:
NPWS is not national, rather it is only a NSW governmental sub-department. Governmental ‘management’ of national parks is not national, rather each state and territory has its own national parks, and the Australian Government is not involved – so a bizarre and misleading naming tradition;
NPWS does NOT look after wildlife. Native habitat in these ‘national parks’ is supposed to be protected. Yet every year vast selected areas are burnt deliberately else left to burn on a grand scale, so killing wildlife and destroying their habitat.
As a consequence, the NPWS deserves to be more appropriately renamed as ‘NSW Parks Service‘ just like in Victoria, the Victorian Government calls its equivalent ‘Parks Victoria‘.
On the relevant NSW Government’s website pertaining to its NPWS, it explains that the NPWS is part of a sub-department called ‘Environment and Heritage, which in turn:
“Environment and Heritage is part of the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
Our vision is for a thriving, sustainable and resilient New South Wales.Environment and Heritage works with communities, businesses and governments to protect, preserve and strengthen the quality of our natural environment and heritage. We do this through active stewardship that supports a healthy New South Wales.We are committed to creating thriving environments, communities and economies that benefit the people of New South Wales.”
The three most trendy feel-good terms above include: “thriving”, “resilient” , active stewardship”. Pure motherhoodism by the contracted young spin doctors with a Communications Degree. So where are the published wildlife regional extinction stats before and after the Blue Mountains 2019 megablaze?
Recall Tathra Sunday 18 March 2018, the consequence of the RFS deliberately lighting a bushfire on a 38 degree Celsius (100 Fahrenheit) gusty day upwind of this coastal village. [Read Our Article: ‘Bushfire Scenario Was Not Rocket Science‘
[8] ‘Impact of the 2019-20 Mega-Fires on the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area, New South Wales‘, 20221129, by P Smith and J Smith, Issue Vol. 144 (2022), Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, ^https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/LIN/article/view/17079
This large healthy mature native Eucalypt has just been chainsawed to death today. We could hear the noise of multiple chainsaws ripping reverberated around the neighbourhood from early this morning.
This tree grew on private residential land within The Gully Catchment on a large double block on the top of a prominent natural spur overlooking the northern part of The Gully not far from Horrie Gates’ old Catalina Dam.
The Gully is a valued small natural valley situated on the western edge of the township of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales.
The particular site is zoned by local Blue Mountains Council as ‘Heritage’ and ‘Environmental Land’ under current Local Environmental Plan 2015. It is also a very old settlement area of the Blue Mountains dating back to 1876. In fact, it forms part of the oldest housing area of the Blue Mountains Local Government Area (LGA) and traditionally known as ‘North’s Estate’.
Land sale auctions advertisement from 1883
It was named after the first land Torrens Title owner John Britty North (1831-1917), an English immigrant during British colonial times who owned most of the immediate area and became a coal shale miner and then property developer there.
Close Up of the above map, the particular site is situated within ‘Sect IX’.
Recognition of this colonial heritage is such that this North Estate precinct has been especially zoned by council as ‘K171 – Norths Estate Conservation Area‘ under council’s LEP 2015.
Was Council permission sought? It appears from a call to Council, that it knew nothing about the owner’s plan to kill this significant native tree in this heritage and conservation precinct, as confirmed by CSR525105. Council used to have a Significant Tree Register to protect identified significant trees within its LGA. It no longer does.
So why kill it? It was a slight 5 degree lean but in the direction of the prevailing wind. Was it some perceived fear that in many years to come it might fall on the house? Was it a prejudiced fear of gum trees? For fire wood?
This native tree was probably over 100 years old, perhaps dating back to the 19th Century and was the most prominent specimen in the immediate area.
What was left of the tree this afternoon before the rain came again.
Yet this majestic native tree was in good health and vigour, and showed no signs of decay.
Close up: This tree was structurally sound. No dead wood from the tree can be seen in these chainsawed sections (‘body parts’)
Was any prior assessment by professionally qualified arborist conducted on the tree?
We recall back in 2014 with regards to saving the 300+ year old Eucalyptus oreades tree that local conservationists had dubbed ‘ATLAS’, that The Habitat Advocate contracted renown expert arborist (the late) Mr Fred Janes, to conduct a professional arborist appraisal and report on the relative health of ATLAS. This was sought because a property developer of the adjoining land wanted the tree killed by chainsaw so that he could selfishly have an overflow car park for the benefit clients of his proposed industrial estate complex. So he had secured a dodgy arborist, only licensed to use a chainsaw. Where as Mr Jane’s report found the tree to be in good health and vigour, and Council agreed.
We have observed over time since our own arrival in this special place in 2001, that whilst in The Gully’s ‘Aboriginal Place’ dissociated land parcels of native bush, the native trees within are culturally sacrosanct, as they should be; yet around the immediately periphery of adjoining private lands, housing development and deforestation continues incrementally. It is death by a thousand cuts transforming the natural valley into an artificial urban landscape.
This is why council insists on being called Blue Mountains City Council in its urbane dreams within a world heritage area.
