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). 

 

 

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.  

 

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.  

 

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.   

 

 

 

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:

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.  

 

This in-creek pollution trap was constructed by Baramy Engineering Pty Ltd of Katoomba for Council.   

 

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. 

 

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 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. 

 

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.

 

1.  Katoomba Golf Course – ‘Yarrabee Katoomba’ – a 24 townhouse subdivision

 

 

2.    21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba – massive housing subdivision

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.

 

 

Council care factor?   Zilch.

 

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References:

 

[1]   ‘Concrete Sand: Essential for Structural Integrity’, ^https://www.constructor.net.au/breaking-down-the-different-types-of-sand-used-in-construction/

 

[2]   ‘Flood photos: Three-day drenching‘,  2021-03-24, Blue Mountains Gazette, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7178181/flood-photos-three-day-drenching/

 

[3]   ‘Police to co-ordinate evacuation of visitors trapped in Megalong Valley following landslip‘, 2024-04-04, by Damien Madigan, Blue Mountains Gazette, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8580550/blue-mountains-flash-flooding-warning-ses/

 

[4]  ‘Katoomba Baramy Trap‘, Maple Grove Reserve, February 2020, video by David King, ^https://www.facebook.com/dingodarbo/videos/maple-grove-reserve-katoomba-baramy-trap-february-2020/783187302176658/?_rdr

 

[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.

 

[6]    ‘Leura Sewage Treatment Works‘, by Ask Roz Blue Mountains, Tourist information centre, ^https://www.facebook.com/AskRozBlueMountains/posts/historic-snapshot-leura-sewage-treatment-works-what-were-they-thinking-if-you-ha/3724364867606906/

 

 

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.

 

 

Live vegetation is waste management JJ Richards?

Above is our consultant’s tree branch from his street verge taken out by Blue Mountains {city} Council outsourced waste management truck to JJ Richards meatheads last Thursday 16th February 2023.  

We felt Council might like to get out of its ivory tower high rise offices isolated from ratepayers and find out what is actually going on in its so-called city within a disappearing World Heritage Area.  So this is our memento to Council and its hypocritical ‘planetary health’ sentiment.

Whilst working from home at the time we heard the recycle truck outside doing it rounds in the street and then snap!   So he went out to inspect.

 

 

 

So as a resident ratepayer, what does one do? 

Pick up the pieces, saw off the hacked tree limb, clear the footpath.  It wasn’t even green bin collection, as in green waste.

 

Here’s the culprit driver we caught taking off heading back to Council base minutes later.

 

Quite a noisy and distinctive vehicle in our short quiet street, so we went outside and watched it depart.

 

This particular day was ‘yellow lid bin’ recycled waste removal day.  Council gets recycled waste collected fortnightly.   

Our mutually courteous arrangement with the waste removal drivers has worked just fine for many years without issue.   No yellow lid bins were outside our premises at the time of removal.  They never are, because we position all bins on the other side of our street where there are no verge trees, so that the driver gets a clear run.  It’s the same for the weekly garbage collection (red lid bins) and also for the garden green organic waste (green lid bins). 

But J.J. Richards in November 2022 must have employed a new driver to do a run that included our street.  This when the garbage started.  We noted this because the driver turned up around lunch time instead off the normal mid-morning, taking a different route only to back track many times.  He seemed lost.  Likely no handover training was provided by J.J. Richards from their older experienced bloke to this malicious meathead.   So what happened to the older experienced bloke we’d had for two decades?

And on his first round this malicious meathead hit the curb at the end of our street, failing to judge the sharp corner.   

 

Two weeks after the curb was run over by JJ Richards, and reported and the concrete stormwater cover re-positioned, the same driver hit the same curb and stormwater cover again.  Slow learner!

Unbelievable!

Council was informed a second time but chose to ignore the Customer Service Request (CSR) complaint and simply closed the CSR we suspect to exaggerate its statistics; not the first time.    How about fixing our footpath before a local pedestrian coming home in the dark breaks their foot.

 

We reported this stormwater drain cover damage by the truck to Blue Mountains {city} Council twice since November 2022.  The initial Customer Service Request (CSR) reference number was  441245.  Council fixed it the first time, but next month the same trucker collected it again.   The damage was again reported , yet three months later it remained damaged and dangerous for pedestrians, especially at night.

Clearly the driver of the J.J. Richards waste truck lacks the skills to know that tight corners require a wider margin to allow the rear wheels with a smaller turning circle to miss the inside curb.  (This author has held a heavy combination ‘HC’ semi license since the 1980’s).

In disbelief, we delivered our severed tree limb to Blue Mountains {city} Council’s reception to pass on to its Waste Management department with a please explain.

 

 

Council’s Waste services did not respond to our complaint until 3rd March 2023, thus:

 

“I’m writing in regards to your phone call lodging a CSR on 16 February and your follow up email providing photos of the damaged branch out the front of your property.

We are sorry that the tree has been damaged in this way.  We have asked JJ’s to review the footage.  From lifting the bin at a previous property and moving toward the bin and the next property, the truck did go under the overhanging tree.  The footage shows that a very small branch dropped behind the truck, so the driver wasn’t aware of the damaged branch shown in your photos.  The driver will be asked to take particular care in the future.”

(Rebecca) Manager, Resource Recovery & Waste Services, Blue Mountains Council.

 

“Very small branch”?   Garbage!  It was 2 metres long and 5 cm thick.  Our overhand is 2.7 metres about the road, ideal for shade for cars given that there is precious little shade around our area.  But is is not suited to bulldozing truck incompetent meatheads!   The JJ Richards truck cabin roof front will surely have a dent atop.

So Council management, enjoy our dead shrub!   Have J.J Richards waste collect it. 

 

 

Some bloke at JJ Richards (Aaron) rang us to say JJ Richard’s were inspecting their recycle truck’s dashcams.   We never got that call back from Aaron. 

 

Then a week later, JJ Richards (green lid) waste truck ran over the same corner curb.  The driver is either a meathead else serial offender employed by JJ Richards and Sons Pty Ltd, probably with dodgy quals and no reference checks.  

Council’s Waste Manager Rebeccas claims a Council maintenance team “s promptly actioned” the stormwater drain cover damage and after subsequent damage would “rectify the safety hazard the damaged stormwater covers pose”.  However, Council maintenance team did nothing of the sort.   On Sunday 12^th March I chatted with a nearby neighbour about this saga, and he told me he’s heard and seen truck hit the curb in question, and that he has taken it upon himself to reposition the concrete stormwater three times. 

Yet Rebecca reckons her maintenance crew fixed the three damage episodes?  She’s in desk-bound Lalaland.

 

 

Seriously, this JJ Richards serial malicious meathead trucker off the road, before a local pedestrian trips or gets seriously injured!  Where else is he causing streetscape havoc vandalism?

 

JJ Richards ‘Total Waste Management‘ means…?  

 

… red lid bins, indeed any lid coloured bins, curbs, stormwater drain lids, verges, trees, parked cars, other trucks, buildings, pedestrians, councillors…the planet. 

JJ Richards TOTAL WASTE MANAGEMENT !

 

 

 

 

 

 

With Council’s waste manager in denial and ignoring our requests concerning this matter, we’ve tried engaging directly with JJ Richards Contract manager Aaron Hilliard.  This is the same person who didn’t get back to us once he watched his culprit driver’s dashcam footage running into our verge tree.

On 16th March 2023 it went like this:

“Hello Aaron,  as requested, I forward you my correspondence with Blue Mountains Council since November 2022 complaining about the damage in my street (and then verge) by this same JJ Richards Driver).  It includes my photo records.  Please read these, and understand that all I want is for this ongoing damage to stop, and then please investigate and sort this ASAP and  let me know the outcome.  Much appreciated. “ 

Aaron’s reply:

“I spoke to Rebecca (Manager, Resource Recovery & Waste Services, Blue Mountains Council) yesterday again about the issues you have raised.  Rebecca has now advised that all correspondence should go through Council for their follow up.  Please contact Council with any further issues you experience with the waste, recycling & garden organics services.  Thank you. Aaron”

Our response:

“It may be inconvenient to both JJ Richards and Council, but the malicious damage cause by JJ Richards as waste contractor to Blue Mountains Council it is more inconvenient to me.  I shall continue to contact both JJ Richards and Council until this problem is properly resolved. Ignoring our complaint will only prologue the matter and escalate it into politics and the media, if that is what you both want.”

 

On 28th March we phone JJ Richards again trying to track down Aaron’s boss at Glendenning.   We’re told Aaron was on the tools  at the time (back on the road driving a  JJ truck) to fill in for JJ drivers taking sickies.   Reception puts us through to ‘Ray’, who comes across as older than Aaron and we suspect Rat report to Aaron not vice versa.  Ray says he knows nothing, so we email him Ray about the saga, asking all we just want this JJ Richards street damage and harassment to us to end.   

No replies yet from Ray, not unsurprisingly.   So, we’ll keep moving up the JJ Richards pecking order (garbage trail). 

 

INCIDENT 5:

Gets worse…Tuesday 28th March at 7:30am, a JJ Richards recycle truck pulls up outside our home and puts his reversing alert on for up to 10 minutes, but without actually reversing.

Tuesday’s not a scheduled waste collection day nor was there any booked curbside household waste to collect anywhere in our small street.

The loud beeping noise woke us up, so I go outside into the street and the driver suddenly took off.  Harassment or what?

I shall get his rego next time on video.  He’s on notice for such harassment.   

Council’s waster manager Rebecca claimed the driver was looking for an empty a missed recycle bin from the Thursday prior after the owner complained.  Our street of all of 100 metres in length, so not exactly difficulty to find the only bin put out for collection in the street.  

It remains full.  Unbelievable.  We have a meathead  on our hands and Council and JJ Richards are in collaborative denial. 

Has this individual had background police checks before he started working at JJ Richards?  Has he got mental health issues or a criminal history such as a an AVO perhaps?

I saw him on his run last Thursday, observing he is a younger male perhaps in his 30s with medium length blonde dreadlock hair. 

The saga continues…

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We recall a previous trucking meathead back on 2 August 2019 who crashed his Metromix Concrete mixer truck into a crash barrier nearby.

 

 

 

Oddly, Council gave Metromix the concrete contract, but not to properly replace the damaged barrier, but to construct new concrete curbing.  Well, it’s one way to get a council contract, s’pose.  Two years later though in August 2021.  The verge is full of weeds.  Welcome to The Gully.

 

 

 

We do monitor the ongoing damage in The Gully in Katoomba, a gazetted heritage place since 2002, and our surrounding historical North’s Estate streetscape dating back to 1876 and heritage listed.  We’ve been based here since 2001.

 

 

 

 

 

We at The Habitat Advocate have lived in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of Australia since 2001.  

Situated on the western fringe of Katoomba, we continue to be closely connected with a small creek valley just below us observed outside our windows, referred to as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, or by former residents simply as ‘The Gully’.  

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley is situated within what we term ‘The Gully Water Catchment’.  It is geographically less that 50 metres away from us, uphill on a spur from the Carrington.  We observe the amphitheatre-shaped natural valley below and hear it within earshot and we greatly respect where we live and appreciate this area’s complex heritage. 

In our mind, the historical and ancestral story of The Gully is a microcosm of the greater story of Australia’s colonial settlement saga.  Whilst Australia’s colonial impost saga started from 1788 at Botany Bay then shifted to a fresh water source at Sydney Cove, The Gully’s saga started from 1815 when the Cox’s Road was driven through and then came land acquisition, deforestation, housing subdivision followed by coal mining by robber baron John Britty North who set the wrath from 1883.

The stories of the past of those before us and those current are vital and so to prevent a repeat of history, deserved to be told warts and all out there and everywhere; not greenwashed by mealy-mouthed government bureaucracy after closed door deals, eating canapes at PC publicity events.  Raw on-ground truth must hold jurisdiction over political papered propaganda for any decent society. 

 

 

We are connected to this creek valley environmentally and have cared for its ecology and monitored various threats to it for now two decades.   As a former member of local resident group activist group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. between 2002-2007 we participated in voluntary Bushcare weeding and rehabilitation and in Streamwatch water quality monitoring.  

We are connected politically.  We have lobbied the land manager/custodian, Blue Mountains {city} Council since 2001 to secure this creek valley’s ecological protection and rehabilitation).   

We are connected socially (we hold a close friendship with many local residents who live around the hilltop fringes surrounding this small creek valley.   

We are connected personally (we hear and see the going on down there daily and we walk around it weekly).   

We are connected historically having researched those who came before us, some who once lived down in this creek valley.  We have researched local history of the area back to 1813).   

 

Essentially, we think we know this small creek valley over the past 21 years quite intimately.  

We respect where we live here, regarding this natural creek valley as the environs of our neighourhood; and as an extension of our home environment.   To us and to many local residents, this is a beautiful natural creek valley; quiet, peaceful and with a sense of a peaceful welcoming sacred spirit.   Our friendship with local elders (some of whom have since passed away) as well as our readings of historical research, confirm this.  Since arriving here to call this place home in 2001, our family feels strongly connected to The Gully, like many of our neighbours.

But although we consider The Gully to now be our home after two decades, we are not so family or spiritually connected to The Gully as those who have come before us, who were here long before us but forcibly evicted by authorities.  It was simply because they were too poor to protest and fight against powerful and wealthy outsiders who usurped The Gully for their own selfish ends.  

The family and spiritual connection to The Gully by those who have come before us, extend back generations.  Indeed, their stories and archaeological evidence shows back 14,000 years to this special place.  We respect that.

Since various others refer to this creek valley and its many portions by other titles, and given various re-namings by local council over the years, for clarity we herein begin by explaining the various namings and their meanings as follows:

In summary, the portions of land of The Gully Water Catchment, including historically, and their relative sizes are:

1. The Gully Water Catchment  (290 hectares/2.9 km²)
2. The Gully (northern section pre-1957) (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
3. Katoomba Falls Creek Valley (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
4. Upper Kedumba River Valley (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
5. McRaes Paddock  (17 hectares/0.17 km²)
6. Catalina (amusement) Park (2 hectares/0.2 km²)
7. Catalina Park (motor) Raceway (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
8. Frank Walford Park (50 hectares/0.5 km²)
9. Katoomba Park and Katoomba Park Extension (8 hectares/0.8 km²)
10. Katoomba Falls Reserve – Cascades Section (8 hectares/0.8 km²)
11. Selby Street Reserve (8 hectares/0.8 km²)
12. Katoomba Golf Course (30 hectares/0.3 km²)
13. Built Up Residential Katoomba (within The Gully Water Catchment) (158 hectares/1.58km²)
14. 21 Stuarts Road (single private land holding – a mixture of pasture and intact sedge swamp (12 hectares/0.12 km²)
15. The Gully – Aboriginal Place version 2004 Plan (66 hectares/0.66 km²)
16. The Gully – Aboriginal Place‘ version 2021 Plan (73 hectares/0.73 km²)
17. Gargaree‘ (a Gundungurra word for gully) (73 hectares/0.73 km²)

 

Why so many place-descriptive names for one little sub-catchment?   Well, ask Blue Mountains {city} Council, since these place names and their renaming are of Council’s doing.  

We notably observe that Council’s land area for ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ in 2021 has expanded from 65.52 hectares since its 2004 Plan to 73 hectares in 2021.  Why so?  Has a miscalculation/estimate error occurred using different metric methods or software?   “65.52 hectares” in its 2004 Plan is pretty darn accurate since down to 0.02 hectares covers an area of just 200m², or 14m x 14m. 

Seriously, is the public who have poor analytical/mathematical interests simply being conned by Council’s guesswork data?

 

The Gully Plan of 2004 not acted upon by Council

These multiple place names for this creek valley have locally ‘evolved’ over decades to various portions by vested interests.  This is confusing to outsiders to comprehend what is what.    So from our local knowledge gained from living here for the past 20-odd years and from our passionate interest in researching to better understanding this place, we elaborate.

 

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The Gully Water Catchment

 

Given the field focus of The Habitat Advocate is ecology, for ecological clarity we shall herein refer to the entire valley catchment area with a hybrid title of ‘The Gully Water Catchment‘.  We include the term ‘gully’ as a conciliatory recognition and respect to the former residents who used this term affectionately when they lived here before the racetrack land usurpation* of The Gully.

[Ed: *Usurpation is the act of taking somebody’s position and/or power without having the right to do this.  Land Usurpation is the appropriation of land from the previous or lawful owner].

Ecologically, this creek valley is most importantly fundamentally a hydrological environmental system.  The natural geography of this creek valley is characterised as an upper course riverscape, which takes the form of a south-facing naturally steep bushland amphitheatre shape in the northern portion of this valley.  The valley lies about a thousands metres above sea level.  

This area is defined as the entire water catchment area of  290 hectares/2.9 km².   The water catchment’s geographical boundaries comprise the Cox’s Watershed (Bathurst Road) to the north, Valley Road to the Jamison clifftop escarpment to the west, a meandering watershed though central Katoomba to the east and Katoomba Falls to the south.

 

Rainwater that becomes surface water and ground water, flows from a small perennial waterfall and a number of springs which flow into several watercourses that confluence into the central creek with a native sedge swampland riparian zone leading to and surrounding the creek.   The creek flows downstream southward over Katoomba Cascades and plunges over Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River about 300 metres below in the magnificent Jamison Valley of the Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.  Kedumba River then flows and meanders southward confluencing into the flooded Cox’s River and the artificial Lake Burragorang (constructed 1948-1960) which has since been Sydney’s primary drinking water supply.  

This all means that indeed the relatively small creek valley on the western fringe of Katoomba forms part of an official drinking water catchment.  But it is not just for the benefit of a distant growing urban Greater Sydney metropolis. 

The Gully Water Catchment in its own right serves as a vital small natural ecosystem to sustain remnant locally native flora and fauna including aquatic macroinvertebrates throughout its creek riparian zone.  This was despite the catchment’s history of land management abuse and neglect by local council and self-interested outsiders. 

This author for five years between 2003 and 2007, as a former volunteer member of local community group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Bushcare Group (‘The Friends’ for short) undertook regular water quality monitoring and testing of three test sites of this creek under the instruction and resourcing the then Sydney Catchment Authority’s Streamwatch Programme. 

 

Our group proudly won five awards over this time for our efforts including this one below in 2005.   Our winning award was a recognition by the Sydney Catchment Authority for our specific work in monitoring, testing, investigating and reporting incidents of sewer overflow pollution of the creek from Sydney Water’s sewer network in the valley.   

 

Fresh flowing water has always been an integral value of this small creek valley.  It is not just that it is part of the Kedumba River Water Catchment that supplies drinking water to Sydney, but vital to restoring the local riparian ecology. 

At the time our volunteer charity group The Friends subsequently invested this $2000 into a fixed interest account, since its operational expenses continued to be funded by our street stalls in Katoomba Street.  Ultimately, upon the sad passing of the founder and chairperson of The Friends on 26th May 2016, The Friends elected to formally wind up the incorporated organisation.  These funds along with the balance of the operational bank account were then gifted to the Blue Mountains Historical Society as part of a successful handover of The Friends archival records spanning 27 years. 

Over two centuries, government in NSW (both  state and local) continually re-zoned and divided up The Gully Water Catchment from being a pristine natural water catchment into various ‘sold out’ portions, thus.

• The New South Wales colonial government’s land usurpation of Aboriginal country west of Sydney for colonial settlement since the British colonial explorers’ crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 
• Government sales of the Blue Mountains plateau lands around what is now Katoomba and Leura (including this creek valley) to various colonial settlers who subsequently deforested the land for timber, cattle and horse grazing and for town building and associated housing subdivision
• The acquisition of this creek valley and surrounding land by one John Britty North [1831-1917] in the 1870s for subsequent deforestation, housing subdivision and then for coal mining exploitation to the south
• John Britty North’s Katoomba Coal Mine’s coal shale tramway corridor (3 metres wide along the western ridge of the valley since the 1870s from the Jamison Valley escarpment (where Scenic World is located) to a rail loading platform called North’s Siding near the corner of Valley Road and Bathurst Road (next to what locals call ‘Shell Corner’ – where the Shell servicestation used to be  situated, currently Bohman Automotive repairs.)
• Incremental sales of bushland by Council for housing subdivisions along with urban streets over many years since the 1880s
• Catalina Park amusement park and lake [1946-1951]
• Council’s subsequent purchase of the land of Catalina Park in 1952
• Catalina Park motor racing circuit leased by Council to the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers Club Ltd [1957-1971]
• Council’s aquatic centre constructed in Katoomba Falls Creek valley in the 1980s
• Two Council cricket ovals at Katoomba Reserve
• Katoomba Golf Course [1911-2013]
• Council’s rezoning and subdivision approval of ‘The Escarpments’ townhouses on a portion of the Katoomba Golf Course site  (2000 – current)
• Council’s caravan park (currently called ‘Katoomba Falls Tourist Park’)
• The NSW Government’s Rural Fire Service’s South Katoomba RFB Station with subsequent access roads
• The NSW Government’s Rural Fire Service’s Bushfire Control Centre built near the aquatic centre below Mission Street
• As a secret waste dump for hundreds of tonnes of sand and rock on top of the swamp extracted from the RTA’s Great Western Highway cutting between Blackheath and Mount Victoria 
• The areas previously gazetted by Council as Frank Walford Park, Mc Rae’s Paddock, Selby Street Reserve and Katoomba Falls Reserve have in piecemeal been handed over to Gundungurra (Aboriginal)-only custodianship as ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ in 2002
• Council’s proposed ‘Centre for Planetary Health’ to occupy the defunct golf course clubhouse from 2022

This list is not complete.

The remnant natural bushland portions of The Gully Water Catchment continue to be steadily sold off periodically by Council (along with many other  bushland blocks owned by Council in order it seems to bankroll Council’s annual operations and councillors’ capital works indulgences – external consultants, legal fees, media public relations, over-paid executive management, and unnecessary capital works projects. 

 

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The Gully

‘The Gully’ is the old affectionate name given to this creek valley above Katoomba Falls and in particular to the northern portion by its former residents (numbering two or three dozen or so) who lived there for decades from the early 19th Century first contact with British colonial settlers.  This was until the last residents were forcibly removed from the gully 1957-1959 by Council and their homes demolished by contracted bulldozer. 

“By May 1959, the shacks of the last Gully residents had been all demolished to make way for the Catalina Racing Circuit which officially opened in 1961. “

– John Merriman, Blue Mountains historian.

 

Those residents comprised both locally Aboriginal clan families, comprising predominantly people of Gundungurra and Darug ancestry as well as non-Aboriginal, many of whom had inter-married.  It had been a tight-knit self-sufficient yet quite poor community refuge of displaced persons, subsisting in bushland typically in meagre dirt-floor shacks with no utilities (i.e. no connected running water, electricity, gas, plumbing, phonelines or streets). 

It had been simple bush living refuge of poor folk subsisting on the fringe of Katoomba of both regional Aboriginal, non-Aboriginal and a intermarried mix of both. Many had been previously displaced in 1948 from their Burragorang Valley bush homes when the NSW government evicted them to flood the valley to create a Sydney’s Warragamba Dam reservoir.  The Gully was a close-knit community. 

It holds archaeological evidence thanks to field research separately by Dianne Johnson, Ph.D (2001) and Alan Lance (2005) which confirm ancient Aboriginal archaeological sites within the gully extending to ancient origins, extending back as far as 12000 years.

 

But The Gully people must have had sewage since around 1907 when then Katoomba Municipal Council had trenched up the valley for sewage to flow to the ‘Leura Filter Beds’ via the escarpment around Katoomba Falls and situated down in the Jamison Valley.  Remnants of the long disused iron sewer pipe infrastructure may still be seen along on the hiking track between Katoomba Kiosk and the Furber Steps access down into the Jamison Valley.

Before colonial settlement, The Gully had been a traditional ‘summer camp’ location used by regional Aboriginal peoples for meeting and ceremonial place of traditional Aboriginal peoples of the Gundungurra, Darug, Wonnarua, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal of the greater Blue Mountains region and adjoining lands.  This was usually is the warmer times of year and this connection to country.   Particularly appealing to these traditional people was the constant and reliable supply of fresh flowing spring water and the abundance of bush tacker and wildlife to sustain a small community.

 

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Katoomba Falls Creek Valley

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was long the gazetted name of this creek valley by local council for decades throughout the 20th Century.  The following map shows some identified sub-portions of the creek valley juxtaposed within the black dotted line of the overall water catchment, flowing to Katoomba Falls to the south.

 

It was affectionately referred to simply as ‘The Valley’ by surrounding residents’ grassroots environmental group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. (The Friends) which functioned to respect and rehabilitate its natural values and ecology as informal ecological custodians and to challenge the many damaging threats to it by various vested outside interests between the years 1989 and 2016; some 27 years.

Katoomba Falls Creek Valley was the historical name of the full length of this creek valley water catchment up until 1995.  

The following recent YouTube video shows the downstream water emanating from this creek valley flowing over Katoomba Cascades and then down Katoomba Falls.

 

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Upper Kedumba River Valley

In 1995 Blue Mountains {city} Council unilaterally decided to rename Katoomba Falls Creek Valley as ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley‘ without local community consultation.   One presumes that Council’s renaming logic was because this the central creek flows of this upland valley flows to Katoomba Cascades and over to Katoomba Falls into the Kedumba River more than 300 metres down in the Jamison Valley below, so it seems that some bureaucrat in Council wanted to continue the name to the small creek above the falls.   

The renaming suggests Council’s recognition of this upland creek valley as being part of the water catchment area of the Kedumba River below Katoomba Falls and through the lower Jamison Valley.  One suspects that given Council’s decades of fighting against the wises of local community environmental activist group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Inc. and that the renaming of the creek valley was a snide attempt by Council to undermine the validity of this group. 

Compare the following two documents below.   The second shows the original name crossed out by Council.  

 

 

 

Council’s 1996 plan of management was pretty much a copy of Fred Bell’s 1993 plan of management for The Friends.  Both plans considered the entire water catchment and recommended similar  environmental restorative actions be undertaken.  It didn’t happen.  

As a former member of The Friends, this author recalls that when the group learned of the renaming on Council’s 1996 plan of management title, the group chose not to change their name.  Affectionately the members just referred to the entire water catchment simply as ‘The Valley’ for short anyway.  

What is so hypocritical of Council’s recognition of this upland creek valley as forming the upper reaches of the water catchment area of the Kedumba River, is that over the decades both state and local government have repeatedly divided up the contiguous water flowing nature of this creek valley in various ways.  This includes rezoning various portions of the land from being gazetted as ‘community land’ to being ‘operational land’ so it could be re-purposed and exploited.  This dates from the colonial 1870s and continues with Council’s most recent culturally exclusive plan of management of 2021.

Land use development examples include:

• James Henry Neale’s subdivision and lobbying from the 1870s to build what has become Katoomba township 
• John Britty North’s adjoining subdivision and joint lobbying for housing and coal shale mining access from 1883
• Various housing subdivision approvals by Council since
• Horace Gates Catalina (amusement) Park and dam construction 1946-1951
• Council’s sewer network trenching throughout The Gully to facilitate further housing subdivision
• Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Motor Racing Club Limited’s motor racing circuit [1957-1971]
• Two Council cricket ovals
• Council’s aquatic centre – which keeps getting bigger
• A bushfire brigade building, hardstand and two access roads 
• Hundreds of tonnes of sand and rock dumped from a highway development (at Soldiers Pinch) on The Gully’s swampland by the RTA in 2001 (with Council approval)
• Sydney Water’s dumping of hundreds of tonnes of sewer fill in The Gully in 2005
• Scenic World’s Skyway development in a secret land swap deal between the Parks Service and Council [2006] 
• Sydney Water’s sewer amplification trenching [2007-2008] to facilitate further housing subdivision

 

This is just to name a few, and this doesn’t include the many hair-brained proposals for The Gully over the years, like an ice-rink, basketball courts, Scenic World’s cable hang-gliding and flying fox, a complete housing subdivision to be called ‘Highmark’, low-rent accommodation, a museum, and even Katoomba’s own mono-rail!   Study Council’s 1981 Plan of Management map below.

 

The word ‘Kedumba’ is has Aboriginal origins and is just a variation of the word ‘Katoomba’ depending on how it is pronounced.   The original meaning was supposedly “tumbling waters” in reference to Katoomba Cascades and Katoomba Falls below.

 

Another theory espoused by local Blue Mountains historian Jim Smith Ph.D. is that ‘Katoom-ba‘ could have been a local aboriginal Gundungurra phrase relating to the pointing to a certain edible ‘fern: ‘Katoom’ (the fern plant) and ‘ba’ (over there) down in the Jamison Valley.   We like the tumbling waters version.

Blue Mountains {city} Council has since renamed Upper Kedumba River as Kedumba River on Google Maps: 

 

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McRae’s Horse Paddock

This middle portion of the creek valley used to be colloquially called by locals as McRae’s Horse Paddock possibly in the post-WWII days of nearby Catalina Park.

This portion comprises the riparian zone and bushland either side of Katoomba Falls Creek extending southward downstream  situated south of Gates Avenue in the north, to Neale Street in the south and east of Peckmans Road in the west as the following map shows.  It excluse the lands already sold off by Councik for residential housing in the east along Loftus Street.

 

 

McRaes Paddock (as it has become abbreviated by Council) is characterised as a narrrow riparian swampland corridor midway along the valley creek that extends from being channeled as a drain culvert underneath Gates Avenue and then south for about 800 metres to being similarly channeled as a drain culvert underneath Neale Street. 

The creek corridor at this creek valley portion narrows from about 200 metres wide to 100 metres at Neale Street, and the approximate remnant swamp/bushland area not yet been encroached upon by housing, covers about 70 hectares (or 0.7 km²).

Anecdotal local oral history records that the land owner was a grazier by the name of McRae (Scottish heritage spelt ‘Macrae’) who grazed his horses in this ploughed up swampland and the surrounding natural grassland either side of the comparatively narrower section of this creek valley.  

Prior to the use of this area as a horse paddock, it had been utilised for market gardening as old photos reveal.

 

Over the decades post-WWI, Gully locals shortened the name to just ‘McRae’s Paddock’ and the name stuck.  The surname has Scottish ancestral origins, the ‘Clan Macrae’ being a traditional Scottish highland clan, however the origins of McRae’s Horse Paddock are not know to us, yet, but give us time with our ongoing research for this website.

 

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Catalina (amusement) Park

Post World War II, between 1946 and 1951 local Katoomba tourism entrepreneurial businessman, Horace Gates, established an amusement park in the valley (The Gully)  that, with support from local council aldermen, he named Catalina Park.

However not long after, by 1951 Horace Gates had lost patronage for his amusement attraction and the venue fell into disrepair.  In 1952 local council acquired his land in the valley. 

 

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Catalina Park Raceway

At this time, Council had hiked up the land rates of properties across the Blue Mountains including those in this creek valley.  It was in order to fund Council’s then  utility obligations in a growing need for sewage, electricity and road making.  Over more than a decade post-war, Council had forcibly acquired many bushland properties that had been investment block of private land holders due to the repeated non-payment of Council’s increasing rate hikes, outsourcing the legalities to the Katoomba legal firm Soper Brothers.   By 1957, Council owned most of The Gully.

During the 1950s motorcar racing had become very popular in Australia and particularly with local businessmen in the Upper Blue Mountains who had bought racing cars and wanted to test them out and to compete with one another.  Numerous small motorcar garages established and there became a growing motorcar racing fraternity.  They registered as as company as the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited. 

Their short uphill car races became popular, usurping various steep local streets of Katoomba and their power and influence evolved into them lobbying Council for a dedicated local car racing circuit to be established in the Upper Blue Mountains.

The Blue Mountains Councillors obliged on Tuesday 2nd April 1957 by passing the following motions thus:

 

And then on the same day:

 

So between 1957 and 1959, Blue Mountains [city] Council proceeded to forcible evict the residents of The Gully and demolish their homes in order to appease these influential businessmen and to construct a motor-racing racetrack circuit in the northern amphitheatre portion of this creek valley.   Council funded the racetrack construction by way of a loan to the Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited, using ratepayer  moneys.  That loan was never repaid.

The usurping motor racing fraternity then called the place ‘Catalina Park‘, named after the float plane that had decades earlier been positioned in an artificial dam alongside the creek as an amusement attraction.  

 

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Frank Walford Park

 

This is the name that Blue Mountains {city} Council gave to the northern portion of the creek valley which forms a natural amphitheatre shape and covers about 80 hectares.  In the 1990’s, following the demise of Catalina Park racetrack, the government landowner of The Gully, councillors on the Blue Mountains {city} Council unilaterally named this northern portion of the creek valley after one of their own, former alderman Frank Walford [1882-1969] who was also the local mayor on three occasions. 

Frank Walford was from Sydney and settled in Katoomba from 1919 just after The Great War where he worked as a journalist with the local newspaper The Blue Mountains Echo and became its editor.  He was a keen and experienced bushwalker, bushman, mountaineer a variable adventurer.   He became an accomplished author of novels and poetry.   

As alderman and mayor he was largely credited (accused by former residents of ‘The Gully’) as being largely responsible for approving the motor racing circuit in 1957 in this portion of the creek valley.   However, while he supported the race track construction, Council records show that he was not mayor at the time in 1957, but an alderman.

Frank Walford Park is bounded by a steep bushland amphitheatre up to the surrounding ridgeline along where Lower Wells Street borders to the north, where Valley Road and Mission Street borders to the west, where Cascade Street borders to the east; and to the south where Gates Avenue, Catalina Avenue and Farnells Road.  There is also a spur-line that juts into the valley from the east which includes the residential streets of Murri Street, Waimea Street and Warriga Street.

It was the broader gazetted land area of the creek valley around which the 1940s amusement park ‘Catalina Park’ centred around the artificial lake was constructed by Horace Gates and later from 1957 where the 2.1 km ‘Catalina Park’ motor racing circuit was constructed by the former Blue Mountains Sporting Drivers’ Club Limited.

Probably a key justification for Council’s naming of Frank Walford Park after Frank’s passing in 1969 was because his home with his wife Madge was situated close by in an 1880s stone house up on the eastern spur-line overlooking Dunlop Corner at 6 Kundibar Street in Katoomba.  Frank and his wife became a fan of the motor racing so much so that during the circuit’s peak operation in the 1960’s Frank had a second storey added to their the stone house as well as a small balcony so they could better  watch the car racing especially from the starting grid up Lockheed Straight and left around the sharp Dunlop Corner.

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Katoomba Park  (and Katoomba Park Extension)

This comprises the southern portion of The Gully Water Catchment between Neale Street and to the Jamison clifftop escarpment around Katoomba Falls.  It includes the two sports ovals primarily used for local cricket during the summer months, as well as the caravan park called Katoomba Falls Tourist Park.  It also includes the riparian zone along the eastern tributary that has its headwaters at where Hinkler Memorial Park is situated and flows through Selby Street Reserve and alongside Council Maple Grove tourist picnic area.  This water course confluences into the main creek just near the road bridge at Cliff Drive.

 

The names ‘Katoomba Park’ and ‘Katoomba Park Extension’ date from the 1990s and are documented in the Bell Report to Council of 1993 and in the Connell Wagner Plan of Management Report to Council of 1996.

Eight years hence, by the time of Council’s Plans of Management of 2004, prepared by consultancy Environmental Partnership, this area was re-labelled ‘Katoomba Falls Reserve – Cascades section (Selby Street)‘.  It had become a disjointed collection of land parcels as the following map shows.  

 

Notably, the following land parcels have been excluded from Katoomba Falls Reserve in Council’s 2004 plan:

• The two sports ovals
• Most of the bushland south of Cliff Drive
• The escarpment top bushland that includes Prince Henry Picnic Area
• The area bushland around Katoomba Falls Kiosk, including the kiosk
• The area of bushland around what is now Scenic World’s Skyway East Station (sold by the Parks Service to Scenic World in 2006)   
• The riparian area around Katoomba Cacades and atop Katoomba Falls, including Katoomba Cascades 
• About 4 hectares of intact swamp/bushland including Maple Grove picnic area  (Area ‘A’ below)
• About a hectare of intact swamp/bushland south along Cliff Drive  (Area ‘B’ below)
• About a hectare of intact swamp and bushland at the address 14-20 Katoomba Falls Road (Area ‘C’ below)

 

 

 

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Katoomba Falls Reserve

This comprises the southern portion of The Gully Water Catchment and is a mix of Crown Land owned by the NSW Government around the creek to Katoomba Cascades  and the top of the Jamison Valley clifftop escarpment at Katoomba Falls. 

It includes council owned riparian zone of the creek and surrounding bushland from Neale Street flowing southward, as well as the two sports (cricket) ovals, Katoomba Falls Tourist Park, Maple Grove Park, as well as the side creek riparian zone from Warialda Street and Selby Street, which for years was referred to as Selby Street Reserve. 

 

 

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Selby Street Reserve

This is the above mentioned side creek riparian zone and bushland to the north east direction to Warialda Street and Selby Street.  The headwaters of this watercourse begin from a spring originally situated where Hinkler Park lies in a hollow. 

 

 

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Katoomba Golf Course

The Katoomba Golf Course site lies wholly within The Gully Water Catchment situated on the south western portion near the Jamison Escarpment.   It covers 30 hectares  and the land is owned by Blue Mountains {city} Council, formerly Katoomba Council, and as such it is community land.   The Katoomba Golf Club formed in 1911 after the  Council approved the native woodland and swamps to be destroyed to make way for fertilised lawn fairways and putting greens. 

 

In the 1990s the 9-hole course was expanded to 18 holes by deforesting more adjoining woodland.  By 2013 the owner of the club went into liquidation.

At the time of writing, Council has leased the upstairs level of the clubhouse to the Parks Service and is proposing to lease the lower level to a new organisation it terms The Centre for Planetary Health in a joint partnership with two universities.  It remains unclear what that organisation will achieve and what the future use of the land will be.

 

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21 Stuarts Road:  bushland subdivision for housing

21 Stuarts Road Katoomba is located in the south-west portion of The Gully Water Catchment. It is a single bushland site of covering 12 hectares that is situated between Stuarts and Wellington Roads, west of Burrawang Street in the west of Katoomba.  The site comprises remnant bushland, swampland and riparian zone around a watercourse in a easterly-sloped side gully flowing westward confluencing with Kedumba Creek (previously Katoomba Falls Creek) about 200m to the east and downstream.  

 

The following street map identifies ’21’ Stuarts Road in more detail.

 

 

Blue Mountains {city} Council records reveal that between 2002 and 2006, the property owner of a rural bushland site, one Ronald Heasman applied for a land use subdivision of the entire site so he could sell off the land for housing development.  Heasman’s initial development application to Council proposed a one into 69 lot subdivision [DP 593545, No. 21 STUARTS ROAD, KATOOMBA, FILE NO:  (DA) S03/0029]

Essentially, the DA was to bulldoze all the 12 hectares of entire remnant woodland and swampland ecology of the site in order to create and profit from a village-scale dense urbanisation of 69 residential dwellings. 

In order to revalue the ecological integrity of this western side gully of The Gully, over time Heasman despatched various bulldozers, excavators, forestry cutters and mulchers and his tractor with a mowing slasher attached to destroy the bushland.

 

Relevant planning controls at the time included

• Local Environmental Plan 4 (LEP 4) zones the site Residential 2(a1), a zone that permits subdivision and detached dwellings. The minimum allotment size is 700m2 for ordinary allotments and 1,100m2 for hatchet shaped allotments. The minimum frontage is 18.5m.
• Local Environmental Plan 1991 (LEP 91) zones the site Environmental Protection. LEP 91 identifies land with a slope in excess of 33% as Protected Area – Environmental Constraints Area.
• Local Environmental Plan 2005 (LEP 2005) zones the site Living Bushland conservation and Environmental Protection – General Zone. The LEP designates part of the site Protected Area – Slope Constraint Area, Protected Area – Ecological Buffer Area, and Protected Area – Water Supply Catchment. 
• The Blue Mountains Better Living Development Control Plan (the Better Living DCP).

 

At the time, local resident conservation group the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. actively campaigned to prevent the ecological destruction of this side valley and against the subdivision for mass housing development application, lobbying Council and arguing as follows: 

1. An over development of the site
2. The building parameters are unclear.
3. Significant Alteration of Bushland Character
4. Fails to comply with ‘Lot Layout’
5. Fails to comply with ‘Cluster Housing’
6. Proposal Fails to Provide Adequate Environmental Protection Buffer
7. Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of LEP 1991
8. Proposal Is Contrary to the Objectives of ‘Residential A1’ Zoning Under LEP4
9. Proposal is Contrary to The Objectives of ‘Environmental Protection’ Zoning Under LEP4
10. Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Environmental Protection’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
11. Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Living Bushland Conservation’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
12. Proposal is Contrary to Objectives of ‘Protected Areas’ Zoning under Draft LEP 2002
13. Likely adverse environmental impact on the ‘Slope Constraint’ Areas
14. Likely adverse environmental impact on the watercourse
15. Likely adverse environmental impact upon the water supply catchment. 
16. Likely adverse environmental impact upon the indigenous vegetation and native fauna
17. Likely Adverse Impact on Biodiversity
18. Failure to undertake adequate surveys for likely Aboriginal heritage
19. Failure to assess likely impacts upon Aboriginal Place downstream
20. Consequential Excessive Demand Upon Katoomba’s Existing Infrastructure, Services and Utilities
21. Lack of Environmental Impact Statement (EIS)
22. Failure to provide an assessment of the likely impact on traffic pressures on nearby streetsnersurvey Increased Traffic Congestion to Adjoining and Nearby Streets
23. The Proposed Creation of Burrawang Street Will Destroy The Existing Bushland Amenity
24. The Proposal  Fails to Identify Likely Impacts to Carlton Street
25. The Site Location is Too Distant From Town to Justify the provision of ‘Accessible Housing’
26. The Proposal Fails to Provide Sufficient Details of Dwelling Locations, Design and Landscaping
27. The Site is Zoned for Environmental Protection
28. The Subdivision Boundary Will Encroach Upon The Ecological Buffer Area
29. Destruction of Indigenous Vegetation Communities & Habitat
30. Downstream Contamination of Kedumba Falls Creek Valley and the Blue Mountains National Park
31. Absence of a Conservation Management Plan or EIS
32. Loss of topsoil & contamination by sediment into the watercourse
33. Steep Slopes Outside Limits for Building Construction
34. Kedumba Falls Creek Valley holds historical and cultural significance as an aboriginal place. 

 

On 23rd November 2004 [ITEM NO: 7] Blue Mountains {city} Council rightly refused consent for Heasman’s DA outright at its councillors’ ordinary meeting, and pursuant to Section 80 of the Environmental Planning and Assessment Act 1979.

Council formal refusal of Heasman’s massive subdivision was made on the following grounds:

1. The proposal is contrary to Clause 33 of Local Environmental Plan No. 4 as the proposed battleaxe allotments are below minimum size requirements and there are numerous allotments that do not have minimum frontages required, resulting in an over development of the site. 
2. The proposal is contrary to Clause 42 of Local Environmental Plan No. 4 as the proposal if carried out would not achieve satisfactory arrangements to reduce the risk of bush fire without significantly impacting on the environmental qualities of the site; and due to the impact on the visual amenity of the locality.
3. The proposal is contrary to the objectives of the Environmental Protection zone within Local Environmental Plan 1991.
4. The proposal is contrary to Clause 10.5 of Local Environmental Plan 1991 as the proposal if carried out would have an unsatisfactory impact on the native vegetation contained within the site and would have an adverse impact on the water supply catchment and on development excluded land within the site.
5. The proposal is contrary to the objectives of the Environmental Protection zone, the Living Bushland Conservation zone and the Protected Areas on the site as proposed and mapped under Draft Local Environmental Plan 2002.
6. The proposal will, if carried out, constitute an over development of the site due to Draft Local Environmental Plan 2002 as the applicant has failed to demonstrate that the proposal will have no adverse environmental impact: 
   1. The proposal includes development on the slope constraint areas within Precinct C and Precinct B; and 
   2. The proposal will impact on the watercourse that traverses the site and on the buffers that contribute to the protection of that watercourse; and
   3. The proposal will impact on the water supply catchment (Kedumba Creek Catchment) mapped for this locality; and 
   4. The proposal will impact on the indigenous vegetation and native fauna present on the site and on significant vegetation communities on the site and downstream of the site; and
   5. The requirements for Asset Protection will have significant impacts on the biodiversity of the site; and  
   6. The proposal does not comply with the considerations for lot layout, nor does it comply with the definition of cluster housing.
7. The development proposal will if carried out, result in significant alteration of the character of the area from a residential bushland character to an urban character.
8. The applicant has failed to undertake adequate surveys or assessments of the potential of the development to impact on the potential for Aboriginal heritage significance on the site; nor has there been adequate assessment of the potential for the development to impact on the Aboriginal Place located downstream of the subject site.
9. Insufficient details have been provided in relation to the management of asset protection zones on the site; and landscaping details for individual allotments and across the public areas of the site; and Aboriginal archaeology and cultural significance.

 

Persistent to get his way, Heasman took Council to the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales (in Sydney) multiple times between 2004 and 2006.  He amended his DA proposal thus:

“The applicant proposes to subdivide the land under community title into 46 lots (43 residential lots and 3 community lots) and to erect a dwelling on 42 of the residential lots. The development is divided into three sections: Precincts A, B and C. Lot A8 is a residential lot of 5,032m2, which is proposed for a six-lot subdivision but presented as a single lot because of the uncertainty of access from Burrawang Road.  The applicant indicated that when that access becomes available, it intends to lodge a development application reinstating the original six-lot subdivision.”  [SOURCE:  Heasman v Blue Mountains City Council, 11039 of 2004].

 

Heasman’s appeal to the Land and Environment Court (LEC) in Sydney used a team of solicitors and barristers who seconded five so-called expert witnesses to support his appeal on technical grounds, being: 

• Mr M Ball, a town planner retained by the applicant;
• Ms N Cavanagh, a town planner employed by the council;
• Mr P Mehl, a consulting civil engineer retained by the applicant;
• Dr P Bacon, a natural resource scientist retained by the council; and
• Mr R Morse, an environmental scientist appointed by the Court,

With support from Council’s appointed experts Ms N Cavanagh and Dr P Bacon, The Land and Environment Court subsequently overruled Councillors’ decision to refuse the application.   LEC Senior Commissioner, Dr John Roseth, residing, upheld Heasman’s appeal thus:

“As I indicated above, discussions between the experts led to complete agreement between them. The agreement is reflected in the amended drawings as well as in the conditions of consent.  The parties appeared before me on 10 March 2006 stating that there were no outstanding issues and that I should make orders in chambers approving the application.

Orders
1. The appeal is upheld.

2. Development application subdivide the land under community title into 46 lots (43 residential lots and 3 community lots) and to erect a dwelling on 42 of the residential lots on lots 1, 2 and 4 DP 593545, known as 21 Stuarts Road, Katoomba is determined by the granting of consent subject to the conditions in Annexure A.

3. The exhibits are returned except Exhibits 28, A, J, K, L and M.”

 

The ecological destruction of this side valley incrementally persists to this day, as remnant bushland gets bulldozed and the site is converted to a housing estate and Heasman profits.

 

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Built-Up Subdivided Residential Katoomba

Almost a half of The Gully Water Catchment comprises housing and commercial subdivision across the eastern portion.  It includes the commercial high street of Katoomba being Katoomba Street.  This water catchment extends from Cascade Street in the north to Ada Street in the east to Lurline Street in the south.   North’s Estate housing subdivision extends into the creek valley down a spur westward from the Carrington Hotel on top of the hill.  The eastern boundary of the housing subdivision runs north-south along Loftus Street.   

The exact date of Katoomba’s settlement is unclear, but since 1815 it has been on the south side of the Cox’s Road first colonial crossing of the Blue Mountains high plateau bush country.  The railway passed by the site of what would become Katoomba from 1967, but the railway platform was not built until 1874.  Katoomba was then just a remote rural locality, referred to as The ‘Crushers’ a sandstone quarry for ballast for train descent down plateau eastward. It was situated adjacent to the rail line opposite the site of what is currently The Edge Cinema) as shown in the late 19th Century land title map below.  

In 1967, English emigrant pastoralist and later Australian politician, James Henry Neale [1828 – 1890], acquired perhaps the first private permanent houses within The Gully Water Catchment including his ‘Froma House’ situated on the site of the current TAFE college on what is now Parke Street. 

As the map reveals, Neale purchased the then swampland of what is referred to as McRae’s Paddock south of what is now Gates Avenue to Katoomba Park.  Neale Street on this land is named after Neale.  Contrary to standard compass point street planning of the time, Neale Street formed a convenient direct bee-line diagonal access road from his Froma House home to the coal mine that was owned by English emigrant, John Britty North [1831-1917] from 1880.  North was a merchant, stockbroker, mining agent and later mining operator of Katoomba Coal and Shale Co. Ltd.

In the 1870s, North had acquired the rest of the plateau bushland and swampland of The Gully Water Catchment and southward into the Jamison Valley, by taking out a mortgage loan with England-based London Chartered Bank of Australia.  See his holdings are shown in the map above.   The land labelled on the map as Katoomba Park in green was probably retained as Crown land, as it remains so today.  North steadily subdivided his land holdings during the 1880s in order to profit from the residential land sales as a means of financing his shale mining business.

The Gully Water Catchment is show by the dotted black outline on the map below.  The eastern portion is dominated by the Katoomba township. 

All rainfall runoff and stormwater from these streets, inside the dotted black line, flows to Katoomba Falls and to the Kedumba River below in the Jamison Valley.  This has formed part of the water reservoir behind Warragamba Dam for Sydney’s drinking water supply since it was completed and opened on 14 October 1960. 

So what goes down these Katoomba drains ends up in Sydney’s drinking water.  As a result, WaterNSW, an agency of the Government of New South Wales, which controls Warragamba Dam water drinking supply adds disinfectants (typically chloramine (chlorine), ammonia and fluoride) to disinfect and purify the water to help make it safe to drink.

 

And this is where the stormwater from this drain flows to via a large pipe into the side creek…

 

 

 

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‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’  [Council’s Plan of 2004]

The community lands within this creek valley that had long been gazetted by Council as ‘Frank Walford Park’, ‘Mc Rae’s Paddock’, ‘Selby Street Reserve’ and ‘Katoomba Falls Reserve’ were in 2004 collectively incorporated into Council’s Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management of some 105 pages.  This 2004 plan followed a series of previously separate plans for this creek valley that extend back to the 1950s and even back to the days of colonial settler ownership and subdivision of from the 1860s.   This 2004 plan was the first to recognise regional Aboriginal historical and pre-historical attachment to this creek valley and was the first plan after this creek valley had been formally declared an ‘Aboriginal Place’, named ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW). 

The rationale and the emergence of legal Aboriginal custodianship of this creek valley came at a brief period in Australia’s socio-political history (pretty much concentrated from Whitlam’s Labor government coming to power  in 1972 through to 2002 in respect to this creek valley.  The becoming of ‘The Gully- Aboriginal Place‘ is best described in detail particularly 2001-2002 in the documentary book ‘Sacred Waters – The Story of the Blue Mountains Gully Traditional Owners‘ by anthropologist Dianne Johnson [1947-2012] published in 2007.   In her superbly researched book, Johnson explains that the critical mover and shaker was local Gundungurra Elder Dawn Colless who in August  2001 had formally nominated the Upper Katoomba Falls Creek Valley (The Gully) for consideration as an Aboriginal Place.  Johnson worked closely with Aunty Dawn and members of the Aboriginal community to prepare the submission for state government.  This included two related books ‘Aunty Joan Cooper Through the Front Door – a Darug and Gundungurra Story‘ (February 2003) and ‘Report to the Gundungurra Tribal Council concerning Gundungurra Native Title Claim‘ (2004).

On 18th May 2002, the Hon. Bob Debus as NSW member  for Blue Mountains and Minister for the Environment, officially declared The Gully “An Aboriginal Place” – a place of special significance to Aboriginal culture.  

A concern at the time, was that the declaration had been closed supported by Council and the Parks Service, which had chosen to emphasise the Gundungurra cultural custodianship of this creek valley over and above other cultural claims by  Darug, Wonnarua, Wiradjuri, Darkinjung and Tharawal Aboriginal peoples.  Council with the Parks Service also behind closed doors and with selective invitees to the declaration process, had deliberately excluded interested local residents, particularly ostracising the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley (bushcare group), who had since forming in 1989 had continually lobbied Council to end the car racing and to start ecologically rehabilitating this creek valley.    The Friends wholly supported respecting Aboriginal cultural claims to The Gully, having over the years learning about their legacy of  Aboriginal dispossession. Founder and leader of The Friends, Neil Stuart [1937-2016] initiated a joint community informal partnership between The Friends and former residents of The Gully  (aboriginal and non-Aboriginal) and with other caring local residents in 2002, called the informal partnership The Gully Guardians.

But on matters concerning any decisions and management of The Gully – Aboriginal Place, Council has cultural form and policy of refusing to consult with anyone outside their selected few of the Gundungurra.   It is an effective socio-political tactic of ‘divide and conquer’ by an organisation hell-bent on process control through ostracising those in the community it does not wish to be accountable to. 

As a former member of the Friends, let the truth be told.

 

The truth about ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ as set aside by Council is that it is only a part of The Gully Water Catchment.  Of the remnant bushland within this catchment, ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’  comprises selective land portions that are not contiguous, that is, they don’t link up.  Yet The Gully historically, before the racetrack land usurpation, which the former residents considered The Gully.  It was/is one unified little valley from the northern ridgetop down to Katoomba Falls – two kilometres north to south and one kilometre east to west.

This is what Council bureaucracy has done ‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place‘ portions – divided them up piecemeal.  Careful observation of this mapping reveals that many boundaries have changed since Council’s 2004 plan of management. 

 

 

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Gargaree

In around 2005, a small group of former residents of The Gully (from the pre-1957 Council evictions) and their descendants who hold Gundungurra aboriginal ancestral heritage, decided to form an organisation they named The Gully Traditional Owners (GTO).   Their purpose has been to become the sole managing custodians of ”The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ in a memorandum of understanding partnership agreement with the legal landholder Blue Mountains {city} Council. 

Regrettably, this has proven to be a controlling initiative over what management decisions are made concerning the Gully, about the priority works and their funding and funding streams.  Local residents around The Gully and The Gully Valley Catchment, the broader interested local community and former members of The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley have been deliberately excluded in the consultation process and so effectively ostracised by Council and this group.

If the 1957 forced eviction of The Gully residents for an elitist motor tracing group’s exclusive usage as a racetrack was land usurpation with racist overtones, then how is the current exclusion by The Gully Traditional Owners comprising a select Gundungurra-only membership that excludes interested local residents around The Gully, not the comparable reverse land usurpation…with this time reciprocal racist overtones?   

When locals of one race is favoured for planning and decision making about a land area (place) to the deliberate exclusion of a different race of locals, this suggests a racist agenda and so is illegitimate in a national society.  This implies a reciprocal repeat of a sad history.  As a society here are we learning?  Age and experience does not automatically translate to wisdom. It is not a bad thing to grow past your elders in some things. 

A few years later GTO decided to rename The Gully (yet again) as ‘Garguree‘.   This word apparently means ‘gully’ or ‘valley’ in the Gundungurra language and was sourced from Blue Mountains historian, researcher and author into the Gundungurra history, Jim Smith Ph.D.   This follows a contemporary trend of renaming geographic places in Aboriginal language.  Is it sending a socially dividing message of some sort of cultural payback to the descendants of non-Aboriginal Australians, who had no say nor played no role in tragic past events in our social history before they were born, just as do the descendants of Aboriginal people and of mixed marriages thereof?

The Gully used to look all like this, pristine riverine ecology uninterrupted by human harm –  all the way to Katoomba Falls, Kedumba River, Cox’s River, Nepean River, Hawkesbury River out to Broken Bay on the coast into the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

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‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’  [Council’s Plan of 2021]

Blue Mountains {city} Council persists with ongoing re-categorisation of land tenor within The Gully Catchment Area with its ulterior motives that are locally divisive.

Council’s latest 2021 Plan is one of many over the years.  But this one is perhaps worse than the others in that as a plan of management it not about rehabilitating this creek valley , but a biased Aboriginal cultural document that has excluded locals to the benefit of a select few.  It prescribes a racist agenda of Reverse Land Usurpation.   

 

 

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Further Reading:

 

[1]  ‘Catalina Park, Katoomba‘, 20100618, John Merriman, Local Studies Librarian, Blue Mountaisn  Library, ^https://bmlocalstudies.blogspot.com/2010/06/catalina-park-katoomba.html

 

[2]  ‘Development of Katoomba‘, Info Blue Mountains History Plaza, ^https://infobluemountains.net.au/history/dev_kat.htm

 

 

Looks natural, but decades of cattle have toxified the riparian zone’s soil and flora co-biology

From 12th-14th May 2017, the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service has planned to set fire to 9km2 of designated wildlife habitat in the Abercrombie River National Park south of the town of Oberon.  It’s about 150km west of the Sydney GPO as the crow flies.

NPWS Area Manager Kim de Govrik has contracted a helicopter to indiscriminately drop incendiaries into the remote and steep wilderness valleys and ridgelines around Silent Creek, west of Abercrombie Road.  It will blanket burn vast swathes of remnant forest within the national park.

“NPWS will use a helicopter and ground crews in the steep terrain in the south-east corner of the Park,” Mr de Govrik said.

Any wonder how Abercrombie’s Silent Creek got its name? 

Two generations ago, American marine biologist and author, Rachel Carson in 1962 launched her seminal book ‘Silent Spring’ telling how all life—from fish to birds to apple blossoms to human children—had been “silenced” by the insidious effects of DDT on Cape Code, Massachusetts. 

DDT stands for Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a hazardous agricultural synthetic pesticide developed in the 1940s that also contaminated food crops and ecology and caused human cancer and Alzheimer disease.  Its use wasn’t banned until 2001.

Rachel Carson at Cape Cod in 1958

Source:  ‘The Story of Silent Spring’, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, ^https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring

Hazard Reduction policy is finishing the extinction job across New South Wales and Australia.  Originally termed ‘prescribed burning’, it too has been used since the 1940s originally by US foresters.  

A camp stay in Abercrombie River National Park will disturb any informed conservationist of how silent the birdlife is in the region.  No dawn chorus like in healthy forest habitats.  And try camping at Silent Creek after the hazard reduction. 

“People are advised that smoke from the burn may impact upon the local area and they should close their windows and bring their washing indoors. Those with asthma or people who are susceptible to respiratory problems should avoid the area or remain inside with windows and doors closed. Motorists are reminded to drive to the conditions, observe all warning signs and follow directions from fire crews,”  Mr de Govrik said.

It is another contribution by government to hazardous and unnecessary smoke, toxic air pollution, greenhouse gases, and human global warming that governments complain about.  Yet in contradiction, this burn is part of the NSW Government’s $76 million package of what it calls hazard reduction over six years.

  

 

Hazard Reduction Fallacy

To protect the scarce Australia’s remaining national parks, hazard reduction arson is run by state governments each in turn cut funding and otherwise set fire to the wildlife habitat, in case it burns.  In New South Wales, the misnamed National Parks and Wildlife Service brings in its petrol-laden trucks and with the the firie-eyed enthusiasm of the Rural Fire Service sets fire to these ‘national parks’ every time the bush has grown back.

‘Hazard reduction’ is spin for habitat reduction.  Habitat is deemed a hazard, and its forest a fuel risk.  It is a policy of perpetuating inadequate fire fighting funding to responsibly and quickly detect, respond to and put out bushfires, like their urban professional counterparts are tasked to do.    Instead, the cheap and ecologically destructive approach is to burn the habitagt in case it burns, so less to worry about.  It is self-defeating.  Like setting fire to ones home to stay warm in winter.  Read up on the demise of the Rapa Nui on Easter Island.

The government’s hazard reduction Managing fire-prone NSW national parks requires a three-pronged approach, including fire planning, community education, and fuel management. When it comes to fuel like dead wood, NPWS conducts planned hazard reduction activities like mowing and controlled burning to assist in the protection of life, property and community.

So the $76 million claims “to boost bushfire preparedness and double hazard reduction in the State’s national parks“.  Many such hazard reduction operations undertaken by NPWS across NSW each year, many with the assistance of the RFS, who relish the opportunity.  Yet when bushfires occur, the same slow response ensues and the same widespread destruction often results, with or without hazard reduction.  Ember attack in high winds travels kilometres beyond any hazard reduction ground.  

But the government arson cult is entrenched.  The lack of responsible funding is chronic.

No flora species has ever been made extinct because it has not been fire ravaged, yet how many species of fauna are on the edge of extinction because  they continue to be?

Anyone with respiratory problems or suffering from Asthma is urged to visit NSW Health or the Asthma Foundation.   Remnant native wildlife like the locally indigenous Black Pademelon, not so Common Wombat and Ringtail Possum, will just have to suck it up.  Each of these species is territorial  which means that they don’t relocate when fire devastates their home range.

What about the locally indigenous Echidnas, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Emus, Platypus, Goannas, Eastern Water Dragons, Broad-headed Snakes, Wedge-Tail Eagles dependent the habitat and the more than sixty species of native birds?  

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Abercrombie a habitat island within a logged landscape

Abercrombie River National Park is situated surrounded by a logged landscape to the horizon.   The Park was gazetted in 1995 as part of a nature conservation strategy supposedly aimed at maintaining the state of New South Wales’ biodiversity.   It claims to protect an important part of remnant bushland within the south-western central tablelands.

By incinerating it?

Actually, the truth is that the region has been too steep for pastoralists to trash, so it was left.  Then the 19th Century gold prospectors got in and dig a lot of it up, before it was abandoned and surrounding farms let their pigs escape and go feral.  Sadly, Abercrombie has become a play zone for weekend hoons.

When did the Parks Service last do a wildlife survey in Abercrombie?    Back when the park was gazetted in 1995 when ecologist Christopher Togher wrote his Report on the Biodiversity and Land Management of the Abercrombie River Catchment.   

Booroolong Frog (Litoria booroolongensis). Locally indigenous to the Abercrombie River region, an endangered species

How many left in Silent Creek?

 

The ‘Parks Service’ thinks it knows best, and has atrophied to presume it exists to facilitate anthropocentric tourism and recreation.  So the tourism arm of the ‘Parks Service’ has set the region aside for exploitation for four wheel touring, fishing, camping, canoeing and bushwalking with two toilets.

The National Parks Service website hypocritically states: 

<<Abercrombie River National Park is a special place..This is an environment built for adventure. One of the most popular activities in the park is 4WD touring (and trail biking). Some of the trails running along gorges and ridges can be pretty challenging, even for the experienced driver. For those with plenty of energy, you can also explore these trails on mountain bikes..>> 

Near Bummaroo Ford Abercrombie River (hoon park), 19th May 2015

 

On the same page, Parks Services recognises that Abercrombie River National Park is a special place for nature and wildlife conservation.  Then it recommends people “get out into the national park and have an adventure!”  It’s all about the experience see.

Oberon Council, home of lumberjacks, claims it is:

<<surrounded by a number of national parks and is the perfect base to experience these enormous sanctuaries of pristine bushland and all they have to offer.  Our national parks are a haven for adventure seekers, with bushwalking, mountain biking, canyoning, camping, abseiling, rock climbing, fishing, 4WD touring and so much more.>>

But you have to drive through vast areas of clear felled forest and plantations around Oberon to get there.

There are four camping sites within the Abercrombie River National Park at Bummaroo Ford, The Sink, The Beach and Silent Creek – all overused.  

Feral pigs run riot throughout the region, happily destroying the riparian zones of the watercourses with impunity.   Over the decades, cattle and now feral pigs have dug up the riparian vegetation causing bank erosion.  They have toxified the soil biology causing weed infestation and facilitating the spread of flora diseases such as dieback – so destroying the region’s native ecosystem.  

Feral pigs thrive in the Australia bush and cause immense environmental damage especially to watercourses. 

[Source: ‘Pig damage , Cycas brunnea habitat, by Alastair Freeman, 2010, ^https://wetlandinfo.ehp.qld.gov.au/wetlands/ecology/components/species/?sus-scrofa]

In the 1960s there were about 50,000 pig farmers across Australia, and many escaped.  The Abercrombie River National Park has been left to become a haven for feral pigs.  Yet the Plan of Management states: “Within the Abercrombie catchment is an extensive amount of remnant riparian vegetation which is extremely important in maintaining water quality and habitat for threatened aquatic ecosystems.”  (Source:  ‘Abergrombie River National Park Plan of Management 2006, 2.2.2. Significance of Abercrombie River National Park, page 2).

<<Feral pigs are opportunistic scavengers and prey on invertebrates, bird eggs, small mammals, reptiles, amphibians and soil invertebrates. Their selective feeding habits also affect the biodiversity of vegetation and creates competition for food resources of native species.  Feral pigs have negative impacts on native ecological systems including changing species composition, disrupting species succession and by altering nutrient and water cycles. Impacts can be direct or indirect, acute or chronic, periodic or constant, and may be influenced by changing seasonal conditions.  Feral pigs tend to congregate around water as they are highly susceptible to heat. The impact of the pigs wallowing in wetlands and watercourses totally destroys these finely balanced ecosystems.  They also prey on ground dwelling mammals, reptiles and birds, in some cases putting extensive pressure on rare and endangered species.>>

Source: ^http://www.animalcontrol.com.au/pig.htm

Then there are the feral rabbits, feral goats, feral deer and feral recreational hoons.    The absence of park rangers is conspicuous.

How Australia treats its national parks

The ‘Parks Service’ website promotes “rivers and creek systems within the park provide habitat for trout cod and Macquarie Perch, which are totally protected species. River blackfish, silver perch and the Murray cray are also found which are regionally rare. Introduced trout may only be caught during the trout season from the October long weekend to the June long weekend.“

So it encourages people to fish protected species?

In Sunday 7th January 2014 (hot mid-summer), campers abandoned their camp fire without extinguishing it.  Their haphazard campsite, situated on Macks Flat near a pine plantation about 1km north of The Beach, was not approved   It burned around 50 hectares including within the Abercrombie River National Park.  It was not a designated camping site and the campers went unpunished.

The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service is legally responsible under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 to to protect and conserve areas containing outstanding or representative ecosystems, natural or cultural features or landscapes or phenomena that provide opportunities for public appreciation and inspiration and sustainable visitor use.

<<Under the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Act national parks are managed to:

1. Conserve biodiversity, maintain ecosystem functions, protect geological and geomorphological features and natural phenomena and maintain natural landscapes;

2. Conserve places, objects, features and landscapes of cultural value;

3. Protect the ecological integrity of one or more ecosystems for present and future generations;

4. Promote public appreciation and understanding of the park’s natural and cultural values;

5. Provide for sustainable visitor use and enjoyment that is compatible with conservation of natural and cultural values;

6. Provide for sustainable use (including adaptive reuse) of any buildings or structures or modified natural areas having regard to conservation of natural and cultural values; and

7. Provide for appropriate research and monitoring.>>

 

This environmental law applies to Abercrombie River National Park.

Yet strategic under-funding, under-resourcing and under-staffing forces the service to neglect these core responsibilities.  Hoons run riot and the park is abused. What a disgrace!   The environmental law is weak because there are no standards, measures or breach penalties.  It was drafted to be a motherhood statement to appease malleable conservationists.

Since being gazetted in 1995, Abercrombie River National Park has been treated as a recreation park, not as a wildlife sanctuary in any way, except on paper to pretend the government actual has a conservation bone in its body.   It’s called ‘Greenwashing’.  NPWS works very closely with the Upper Lachlan Tourist Association, and the Rural Fire Service.

In 2010, National Parks and Wildlife staff carried out a 520 hectare hazard reduction burn in the north of Abercrombie River National Park, with the RFS in tow.  Kanangra Boyd area manager Kim de Govrik said at the time the burn off took place in the Felled Timber Creek area.

<<The park is now open and ready for the influx of eastern campers,” Mr de Govrik said. “The operation was a great success thanks to the assistance of the local RFS brigades. RFS volunteers from Jerrong/Paling Yards, Gurnang and Black Springs helped in putting in the 11km of fire edge.>>

During 2009, National Parks and Wildlife completed a record 230 burns, covering nearly 80,000 hectares of native habitat.

NPWS is targeting the state’s 225 national parks and reserves for programmatic habitat reduction under its current $76 million programme:

• Crowdy Bay National Park
• Sea Acres National Park
• Yuraygir National Park
• Mimosa Rocks National Park
• Jervis Bay National Park
• Nightcap National Park
• Hill End Historic Site
• Montague Island Nature Reserve
• Wombeyan Karst Conservation Reserve
• Worimi National Park
• Sturt National Park
• Dorrigo National Park
• Wyrrabalong National Park
• Yanga National Park
• Popran National Park
• Yellomundee Regional Park
• Blue Mountains National Park
• Dharawal National Park
• Blue Gum Hills Regional Park
• Warrumbungle National Park
• William Howe Regional Park
• Wollemi National Park
• Wolli Creek Regional Park
• Wollumbin National Park
• Nymboi-Binderay National Park
• Lane Cove National Park
• Ben Boyd National Park
• Tomaree National Park
• Coffs Coast Regional Park
• Murray Valley National Park
• Rouse Hill Regional Park
• Georges River National Park
• Cape Byron State Conservation Area
• Mutawintji National Park
• Glenrock State Conservation Area
• Royal National Park
• Myall Lakes National Park
• Oxley Wild Rivers National Park
• Eurobodalla National Park
• Gaagal Wanggaan (South Beach) National Park
• Brisbane Water National Park
• Morton National Park
• Gundabooka National Park
• Corramy Regional Park
• Mount Kaputar National Park
• Berowra Valley National Park
• Bongil Bongil National Park
• Kinchega National Park
• Dharug National Park
• Munmorah State Conservation Area
• Murramarang National Park
• Abercrombie Karst Conservation Reserve
• Abercrombie River National Park
• Muogamarra Nature Reserve
• Garigal National Park
• Mount Canobolas State Conservation Area
• Borenore Karst Conservation Reserve
• Bouddi National Park
• Kosciuszko National Park
• Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park
• Arakwal National Park
• Border Ranges National Park
• Pilliga National Park
• Mungo National Park
• Leacock Regional Park
• Paroo-Darling National Park
• Washpool National Park
• Hat Head National Park
• Cattai National Park
• New England National Park
• Heathcote National Park
• Budderoo National Park
• South East Forests National Park
• Bents Basin State Conservation Area
• Bundjalung National Park
• Barrington Tops National Park
• Jenolan Karst Conservation Reserve
• Arakoon National Park
• Sydney Harbour National Park
• Tyagarah Nature Reserve
• Cottan-Bimbang National Park
• Illawarra Escarpment State Conservation Area
• Boonoo Boonoo National Park
• Kattang Nature Reserve
• Yerranderie Regional Park
• Yuranighs Aboriginal Grave Historic Site
• Turon National Park
• Hunter Wetlands National Park
• Towra Point Nature Reserve
• Woomargama National Park
• Biamanga National Park
• Culgoa National Park
• Cudgen Nature Reserve
• Cullendulla Creek Nature Reserve
• Dooragan National Park
• Yarriabini National Park
• Coorabakh National Park
• Wallingat National Park
• Wallumatta Nature Reserve
• Mann River Nature Reserve
• Queens Lake Nature Reserve
• Yanununbeyan State Conservation Area
• Deua National Park
• Yengo National Park
• Kings Plains National Park
• Koreelah National Park
• Willandra National Park
• Willi Willi National Park
• Wingham Brush Nature Reserve
• Woko National Park
• Kwiambal National Park
• Lake Macquarie State Conservation Area
• Jilliby State Conservation Area
• Murramarang Aboriginal Area
• Wadbilliga National Park
• Wallarah National Park
• Terry Hie Hie Aboriginal Area
• Lake Innes Nature Reserve
• Cambewarra Range Nature Reserve
• Cecil Hoskins Nature Reserve
• Chaelundi National Park
• Kanangra-Boyd National Park
• Karuah National Park
• Parr State Conservation Area
• Dunggir National Park
• Brimbin Nature Reserve
• Brindabella National Park
• Murrumbidgee Valley National Park
• Cocoparra National Park
• Robertson Nature Reserve
• Livingstone National Park
• Gibraltar Range National Park
• Burragorang State Conservation Area
• Dalrymple-Hay Nature Reserve
• Deriah Aboriginal Area
• Capertee National Park
• Coramba Nature Reserve
• Goobang National Park
• Tapin Tops National Park
• Goolawah National Park
• Clyde River National Park
• Monga National Park
• Mount Imlay National Park
• Bindarri National Park
• Muttonbird Island Nature Reserve
• Seven Mile Beach National Park
• Tweed Heads Historic Site
• Palm Grove Nature Reserve
• Goulburn River National Park
• Nangar National Park
• Ulidarra National Park
• Toonumbar National Park
• Weddin Mountains National Park
• Werakata National Park
• Broadwater National Park
• Carrai National Park
• Cascade National Park
• Mummel Gulf National Park
• Munghorn Gap Nature Reserve
• Dthinna Dthinnawan National Park
• Bungonia National Park
• Tallaganda National Park
• Torrington State Conservation Area
• Guy Fawkes River National Park
• Nadgee Nature Reserve
• Bournda National Park
• The Rock Nature Reserve – Kengal Aboriginal Place
• Bomaderry Creek Regional Park
• Oolambeyan National Park
• Sherwood Nature Reserve
• Warrabah National Park
• Towarri National Park
• Richmond Range National Park
• Gardens of Stone National Park
• Macquarie Nature Reserve
• Scheyville National Park
• Mount Grenfell Historic Site
• Macquarie Pass National Park
• Victoria Park Nature Reserve
• Ngambaa Nature Reserve
• Jerrawangala National Park
• Nowendoc National Park
• Seaham Swamp Nature Reserve
• Brunswick Heads Nature Reserve
• Broken Head Nature Reserve
• Nattai National Park
• Bald Rock National Park
• Marramarra National Park
• Meroo National Park
• Moonee Beach Nature Reserve
• Mebbin National Park
• Budawang National Park
• Conimbla National Park
• Thirlmere Lakes National Park
• Copeland Tops State Conservation Area
• Boorganna Nature Reserve
• Werrikimbe National Park
• Whian Whian State Conservation Area
• Bangadilly National Park
• Bargo State Conservation Area
• Nymboida National Park
• Conjola National Park
• Coolah Tops National Park
• Mount Royal National Park
• Garawarra State Conservation Area
• Middle Brother National Park
• Limeburners Creek National Park
• Little Llangothlin Nature Reserve
• Barren Grounds Nature Reserve
• Booti Booti National Park
• Moore Park Nature Reserve
• Iluka Nature Reserve
• Watagans National Park
• Hartley Historic Site
• Mount Hyland Nature Reserve
• Cathedral Rock National Park
• Saltwater National Park
• Narrawallee Creek Nature Reserve
• Tooloom National Park
• Mother of Ducks Lagoon Nature Reserve
• Beni State Conservation Area
• Burning Mountain Nature Reserve
• Mullion Range State Conservation Area
• La Perouse area
• Kurnell area

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Further Reading:

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[1]  Hazard Reduction Programme, NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service,  ^http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/conservation-programs/hazard-reduction-program

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[2]   ‘National Parks Experiences‘, by Oberon Council, ^http://www.oberonaustralia.com.au/visitor-information/national-parks/

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[3]   Booroolong Frog  (Litoria booroolongensis) ,  Australian Government Department of Environment and (contradictory) Energy, ^http://www.environment.gov.au/cgi-bin/sprat/public/publicspecies.pl?taxon_id=1844

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[4]  Abercrombie River National Park, by NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, ^http://www.nationalparks.nsw.gov.au/visit-a-park/parks/abercrombie-river-national-park/learn-more

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[5]  Abercrombie River National Park, by Upper Lachlan Tourism, ^http://visitupperlachlan.com.au/abercrombierivernp.html

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[6]     ‘The Story of Silent Spring – How a courageous woman took on the chemical industry and raised important questions about humankind’s impact on nature‘, by the Natural Resources Defense Council, ^https://www.nrdc.org/stories/story-silent-spring

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[7]    ‘A Report on the Biodiversity and Land Management of the Abercrombie River Catchment‘, 1996, by Christopher Togher, National Parks Association of N.S.W., ^http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/16032156?selectedversion=NBD12849978

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Smoking Ceremony or Smoke and Mirrors?

Staged for the delegates by National Parks and Wildlife Service of New South Wales (NPWS), somewhere outside Sydney, Australia

[Source:  ‘Global First Nations environmentalists share stories at the World Parks Congress in Sydney.5:30’, ^https://twitter.com/nitvnews, 20141113]

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Every ten years a World Parks Congress is a forum staged by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to discuss the effectiveness of World Heritage Listed Protected Areas.   For 2014, Parks Australia put up Sydney’s hand to host and fund it.

<<“We (Parks Australia) are delighted to be co-hosting the IUCN World Parks Congress with our colleagues in the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service – and look forward to welcoming inspiring leaders from around the world.”>>

IUCN’s vision is a “just world that values and conserves nature.”  The theme for the 2014 conference is “Parks, people, planet: inspiring solutions”.

The last congress was in Durban, South Africa eleven years ago in 2003 and significant messages from that congress were that:

1. Considerable progress has been made in the establishment of protected areas although significant gaps remain
2. Protected areas face many challenges, and management effectiveness must be strengthened
3. Protected areas play a vital role in biodiversity conservation and sustainable development
4. A new deal is needed for protected areas, local communities and indigenous peoples
5. There is a need to apply new and innovative approaches for protected areas, linked to broader agendas
6. Protected areas require a significant boost in financial investment
7. Protected areas management must involve young people

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Congress Cost Benefits ?

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The obvious first question for the 2014 Sydney Congress is what are the outcomes from these seven messages of 2003?

The second question is what is to be the conservation return on investment of staging the 2014 congress in Sydney?   That starts with Parks Australia and NPWS disclosing the full costs of the congress.  How much will it have cost by the time this week is over?   Five million? Ten million? Twenty million? More?  That also involves disclosure of the onground conservation outcomes, if any.   The congress hosts more than 5000 delegates for a week-long event in Sydney.

If the answers are not forthcoming and/or the performances less than satisfactory, then perhaps the money could have been better spent (invested) by Parks Australia and NPWS on specific onground conservation of current and worthy Protected Areas in Australia.  So the third question is what is the opportunity cost of the 2014 IUCN World Parks Congress which could have delivered the IUCN vision of a “just world that values and conserves nature”?

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Congress Opportunity Costs

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According to IUCN director general, Julia Marton-Lefevre, assessments during the past decade have found that half of the world’s protected areas at best — and possibly as few as 20 per cent — are managed effectively. “Some are what we refer to as ‘paper parks’ ” – parks just on paper.

The Australian Government’s $180 million allocation to expand the park reserve system expired last year.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is a case in point.  It is the iconic Protected Area in Australia.  Its World Heritage listing along with various national zoning, management plans, permits, education and incentives are supposed to protect and conserve the marine ecosystems and migratory species from human threats. But farm and urban runoff continues to contaminate the rivers that flow into the Reef.

In 2009 and 2011, mining company Queensland Nickel discharged nitrogen-laden water and 516 tonnes of toxic waste water into the Great Barrier Reef.

On 21 July 2013, on the second day of the biennial joint training exercise Talisman Saber, two American AV-8B Harrier fighter jets launched from aircraft carrier USS Bonhomme Richard (LHD-6) dropped four bombs, weighing a total 1.8 metric tons (4,000 pounds), into more than 50 metres (164 ft) of water. On 3rd April 2010, The Shen Neng 1, a Chinese ship carrying 950 tonnes of oil, ran aground, causing the 2010 Great Barrier Reef oil spill.

In December 2013, Greg Hunt, the Australian environment minister, approved a plan for dredging to create three shipping terminals as part of the expansion of an existing coal port. According to corresponding approval documents, the process will create around 3 million cubic metres of dredged seabed that will be dumped within the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

On 31 January 2014, a permit was issued to allow three million cubic metres of sea bed from Abbot Point, north of Bowen, to be transported and unloaded in the waters of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, just outside of Abbot Bay.  The dredge spoil will cloud the water and block sunlight, thereby starving sea grass and coral up to distances of 80 km away from the point of origin due to the actions of wind and currents.  The dredge spoil will smother reef or sea grass to death, while storms can repeatedly resuspend these particles so that the harm caused is ongoing; secondly, disturbed sea floor can release toxic substances into the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

Dredging the Great Barrier Reef for bulk export shipping

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The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park has become just a blue line on a map.  The trickle of funds for Australia’s national parks betrays a lack of appreciation of their economic contribution. Annual funding for the authority that runs Australia’s most famous reserve, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, is about 1 per cent of the $5.2bn it earns the country in tourism revenue.

Yet if the IUCN World Parks Congress cost a conservative $20 million to stage then a key opportunity cost would be the June 2014 Federal budget cuts to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority.

The budget axed 17 staff including five of its’ directors positions.   These positions included the director of heritage conservation, the director of policy and governance and the director of coastal ecosystems and water quality as part of an internal restructure.  It’s being described as the greatest loss of expertise from Australia’s most important natural wonder and it comes at the very time the Great Barrier Reef is facing the greatest threat to its survival.

The Greater Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has been reduced by the Australian Government to being in name only and ineffective at protecting the reef.

Until recently, one of those five directors, Adam Smith, was charged with dealing with the contentious Abbot Point coal terminal development and the proposal to dump three million cubic metres of dredge spoil into the marine park.   Despite Dr Smith’s concerns, the sea dumping was approved by the Marine Park Authority.

Dr Smith has since accepted voluntary redundancy and moved on after disagreeing with the Authority’s new economic leadership and values.  Heritage conservation director Jon Day has left after 21 years, disillusioned too with the direction the Authority has taken to compromise the reef.

Next year UNESCO will decide whether to put the reef on its world heritage in danger list.  Native Dugongs are already endangered.  The deliberate extermination of the dugong and turtles which habituated the Gladstone area is a national tragedy. Dugongs are species listed under the Federal Environment Protection Biodiversity & Conservation Act, which requires the Federal government to legally protect these animals.

Prior to the massive dredging operation of 52 million cubic metres of seabed for the development of the world’s largest LNG Terminal, ( which is 62% completed) a study commissioned by the Gladstone Ports Corporation found that a take, or a quota, of more than zero dugongs would be unsustainable.

In the face of massive mortality of dugongs, turtles and inshore dolphins during the ongoing massive dredging, both the Federal and Queensland governments ignored the slaughter.

Look at the stranding data from the Queensland Department of Environment and Resource Management. Monthly cumulative Dugong strandings by year for Queensland, up to 31 January 2012.

There are 22,000 vessel movements a month in Gladstone Harbour. No ship strikes of Dugongs or of Green Turtles need to be reported.  No audit of environmental conditions has been undertaken by the Queensland or Federal Governments.   The wholesale slaughter of our marine wildlife is the price Australians are paying for the transformation of the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage Area into the world’s largest unregulated quarry.

Mass tourism operators good for the economy

Getting up close to protected Humpback Whales within their 100 metre Protected Area

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Australian protected areas have seen rule changes in the eastern states have allowed cattle to graze, recreational shooters to hunt and hotel developers to build in national parks. Shore-based recreational fishing has been allowed in areas of NSW marine parks previously zoned as no-take sanctuaries.  National parks on land and in the ocean are dying a death of a thousand cuts, in the form of bullets, hooks, hotels, logging concessions and grazing licences.

Yet as host of the 2014 World Parks Congress, Australia is showcasing “our own inspiring places, inspiring people and inspiring solutions.”     The Global Eco Forum within the Congress programme focuses on tourism exploitation of Protected Areas because like the new Greater Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, the new values are not about conservation by the billions in revenue opportunity to Australia’s economy.

The October 2006 issue of National Geographic published an article “The Future of Parks: Hallowed Ground – Nothing is Ever Safe”.

It stated:

“Landscape and memory combine to tell us certain places are special, sanctified by their extraordinary natural merits and by social consensus. 

We call those places parks, and we take them for granted.”

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Sydney’s 2014 World Parks Congress appears to be expensive window dressing, showcasing fraudulent conservation of Protected Areas in Australia.

It’s termed Greenwashing.  The opportunity cost of the 2014 Congress could have instead funded the retention of the previously effective Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority and so done more for Protected Areas than all the pomp, promising, luncheons, showcasing, and talk-festing of the congress combined.

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Protest to stop Queensland Resources Council dumping dredge spoil inside the Reef

Protest by Cairns and Far North Environment Centre (CAFNEC), June 2014

^http://cafnec.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/rally-promo-photo.jpg

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Further Reading:

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[1]    IUCN World Parks Congress (Sydney 2014), International Union for Conservation of Nature, ^http://worldparkscongress.org/

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[2]   ‘Global Eco-Tourism in Protected Areas‘, by EcoTourism Australia,  >2014 Global Eco Tourism in Protected Areas.pdf   (1.1MB, 2 pages)

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[3]   Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (website), Australian Government,  ^http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/

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[4]   Fight for The Reef (website), Australian Marine Conservation Society, ^https://fightforthereef.org.au/risks/dredging/

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[5]   No Hunting in National Parks (website),  The National Parks Association of NSW,  ^http://nohunting.wildwalks.com/

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[6]   ‘An international perspective on tourism in national parks and protected areas‘, by J.G. Castley (2014), >An international perspective on tourism in national parks and protected areas.pdf  (100kb, 10 pages)

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[7]   ‘EXTRA: ‘Nasho’, Royal National Park, Sydney’s neglected southern jewel‘, by Nick Galvin, Journalist, Sydney Morning Herald, 20140613, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/extra-nasho-royal-national-park-sydneys-neglected-southern-jewel-20140613-zs6d8.html

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[8]   ‘Paradise lost: Australia’s heritage jewels under threat‘, (audio), ABC ‘Background Briefing’ radio programme, by Sarah Dingle, 20131208, ^http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/2013-12-08/5132224

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White Lemuroid Possum

(Wet Tropics of Queensland World Heritage Area in Danger)

Has the white lemuroid possum become the first mammal to go extinct due to global warming?
The species, normally found above 1000m, has not been sighted during any nighttime spotlighting expedition since 2005. Experts fear a temperature rise of 0.8 degrees Celsius may be to blame for the animal’s disappearance. 

[Source:  ^http://www.wherelightmeetsdark.com/index.php?module=newswatch&NW_user_op=view&NW_id=453]

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ATLAS of Katoomba 

[ © Photo by Editor 20140907, Katoomba, Blue Mountains World Heritage Area]

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At an informal community meeting at ATLAS (a 200+ year old endemic Blue Mountains Ash) today, it has been made public that Blue Mountains Council’s tree officer had been inappropriately coerced by a councillor in 2010 to have this magnificent iconic tree conveniently killed.  According to the officer it is because of a (very) close association with a property developer of the adjoining site.

Fortunately the tree officer, out of respect for this heritage tree and out of respect for the rule of law and for due process, personally stood up to the councillor’s intimidation and so appropriately arranged for an independent arborist to evaluate the viable health of this tree.

That independent arborist reported that the tree was healthy and ought to be retained, and so it has.

All credit to Council’s Public Tree Officer for resolutely following due process. The developer has a track record of ignoring Blue Mountains Councils development consent conditions relating to this tree.  DA consent conditions 61, 62, 63, and 68 have all been ignored or breached.

Despite Council’s requirement for Tree Protection Measures and a Tree Protection Plan, neither were supplied, yet the industrial development was allowed to proceed.

The developer has illegally lopped a healthy branch from the tree.

Main branch illegally lopped by the developer’s contractor without Council permission

[ © Photo by Angophora Consulting Arborist, 201410-03, Katoomba, Blue Mountains World Heritage Area]

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The developer furnished no Tree Protection Measures, Tree Protection Plan or Tree Protection Zone. In the mind of the developer, the tree is situated on Council land after all.  He knew as such and was likely told that his environmental bond was a farce.

He is correct.  So this is why a string of Council bureaucrats have gone running for cover. .

Katoomba residents Maureen and Peter Toy with Glenn Humphreys (right) marvel at Katoomba’s largest native tree

[Photo © Friends of Atlas, 20140907, click image to enlarge]

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Residents of the Blue Mountains, Maureen and Peter Toy, were shocked to learn last month about an arbitrary claim for this magnificent tree (pictured) to be killed for what they consider can be no rational reason.

According to advice that the Toys received from local conservation consultancy The Habitat Advocate, this large Blue Mountains Ash (Eucalyptus oreades) is a native tree only found in the Upper Blue Mountains.  This particular specimen probably dates to 19th Century colonial settlement in Australia.

Maureen says “It is a beautiful and rare specimen and Blue Mountains folk are fortunate that we have such a significant tree still growing right by Megalong Street in now an increasingly industrialised part of Katoomba.”

Over the many decades, this great tree has withstood fierce windstorms, bushfires, road-widening right up to its trunk and industrial development all around it.  With a canopy about 40 metres high and a trunk girth of over 5 metres, the tree has become a recognised icon and reference point in the area.  It is home to a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos.

Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (Cacatua galerita)

These character parrots may be of ‘Least Concern’ to IUCN, but to the clan of cockies habitating Atlas, this is their home.

[Source: Zoos Victoria, ^http://www.zoo.org.au/healesville/animals/sulphur-crested-cockatoo]

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Maureen affectionately calls the tree, ‘Atlas’, after the Greek God, for its towering size and for being so enduring.  There is no other quite like it perhaps throughout the world renown Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.

Peter can’t understand why the tree is not on Council’s Significant Tree Register or why anyone would want to harm it.  The tree is on community verge land and for the past few years there has been an industrial development constructed behind it.  Peter and Maureen are vehemently opposed to any further harm being inflicted upon the tree and they have lodged a protest with council.

Several others in the local community have sided with the Toys and together have formed a local group ‘Friends of Atlas’ determined to protect the tree.  Peter is looking to start a petition to garner local community recognition and support to protect the tree. He says “it is early days but he is ready for a sustained fight.”

A spokesperson from Blue Mountains (city?) Council has confirmed that the tree is situated on ‘Community Land‘ on the verdant verge strip between the street and the new industrial development at number 59 Megalong Street.  The tree and its canopy and root system is not on private land, but on Community Land.  Council has a duty as the community-delegated custodian of all community lands throughout the Blue Mountains Local Government Area.  Council does not ‘own’ the tree per se, rather Council acts as the responsible custodian of this significant tree.

Council has stipulated in its development consent conditions for the adjoining industrial development application since 2010 that the tree must not be harmed by the current development activity.

But Peter disagrees.  He says “guttering has been dug right into the tree roots system and just a month ago the developer had a bobcat grade the topsoil and roots around the tree for an entire day!.”

Council’s spokesperson says that council has not received any request for the tree to be destroyed.

A battle to save the tree is set to ensue.

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Further Reading:

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[1]  Campaign Facebook Page:  ^https://www.facebook.com/friendsofatlas

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[2]  Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area,  ^http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/917

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[3]  Blue Mountains (city?) Council’s promotional tourism hypocrisy (or ‘greenwashing‘): ”

<<The Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area only exists today because of a 70-year campaign by conservationists to achieve a chain of reserves across the region.  This culminated in the year 2000 with the acceptance of 10,000 square kilometres of wild bushland onto the World Heritage list – the ‘best of the best’.>>

Source: Blue Mountains (city?) Council, ^http://www.greaterbluemountainsdrive.com.au/

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…70 years hence, this is the same reason why conservationists ‘Friends of Atlas’ have started a campaign.  Atlas is the “best of the best”.

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