Blue Mountains native nursery eviction threat…

by Steven Ridd

 

 

The Habitat Advocate has sadly learned about a governmental threat to evict this much loved and valued local community volunteer-run nursery business in Katoomba in the Australian Blue Mountains region, successfully operating onsite since 1999.

This author learned about this from off the grapevine, else we should have otherwise learned about this news development from reading our local Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper.   Yet, that valued weekly newspaper informing locals about Blue Mountains goings-on has been denied us for some years.  The paper has not been distributed to our Katoomba Falls Creek residential precinct since long before COVID – like for the past 5 years or so!   

An unviable newspaper business model for these times?   One notes that the newspaper’s distribution statistics have been removed from this newspaper’s print masthead for some time (Read a harbinger of the Gazette’s pending closure)

Moving on… a few weeks back a Blue Mountains friend informed us about this news of the nursery, then kindly dropped around his copy of the Gazette issue dated Wednesday 15th January 2025. 

This is the front page article with the legendary Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service (‘Wildplant Rescue’) on the front page we read:

 

‘Eviction day looms for Wildplant Rescue nursery’ 

 15th January 2025, by Jennie Curtin, BMG journalist) 

‘Time is running out for the Wildplant Rescue nursery at Katoomba.

The volunteers have been told they have until the end of April to find a new home, after the owner, the NSW Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ), cited maintenance costs and fire safety issues.  (Author:  aka the landlord’s wanton neglect of this bushland site for decades, and a rubbish slack ulterior motive excuse to flog off the site for profit to a developer for housing – truth telling!)

The department wants to sell the site, which used to be adjoined to the now-closed and re-purposed Clairvaux Children’s Home adjacent and which is in need of repair, restoration and safety features. 

 

The entire Clairvaux Community Services site has long been neglected by the NSW Government for decades.   Dozens of abandoned and vandalised buildings by ACRC snuggled in nativve bushland, now warrant demolition.   They contain asbestos interior fabrication wall lining from the 1970s.

 

 

The cost of setting up elsewhere is beyond the means of the volunteer-run nursery, which rescues local native species from building sites and propagates them as well as other rare and difficult natives.  It sells the plants to home gardeners as well as council, landscapers and Bushcare organisations, providing the income to keep going.

The volunteers are desperately hoping the department changes its mind and gives them a permanent lease on their small section of the site.  The only alternative, said president Verity Harris, is to find a benefactor with deep pockets.   “If there’s a good millionaire out there with a plot of land …” she said hopefully.

The group had talks with council about a possible site during the planning of the old Katoomba golf course precinct. But a spokeswoman for council said “a plant nursery is not a permissible use on this site under the current zoning, and an amendment to the LEP would be required to include this and other additional uses.  That would be a lengthy process including making a submission to the state government and further public consultation.”

The DCJ said it recognised the important service the nursery provides in protecting threatened species but a land condition audit of the site in 2020 found that it was not fit for purpose and was not safe for long-term use because of its fire zone.

DCJ:

“Tenants of the site were notified of the need to vacate the site in 2021 and since then almost all have relocated.  DCJ has not provided formal notification to the nursery to leave the site whilst we continue to assist them to find a new home.”

The nursery has operated at the site since 1998.  Although it receives no funding, Ms Harris acknowledged that DCJ did not charge them for rent or for water and electricity.

One of the difficulties with an unknown future is that no forward decisions can be made.  The group recently spent money on new benches for the plants but don’t want to install them in case they have to take them down.  There is also a greenhouse which is lying unassembled for the same reason.  “The uncertainty is really quite crippling,” Ms Harris said.   Volunteer Frances Scarano said the group only propagates native plants from the Mountains to ensure genetic purity.  “We extend the diversity” of plants grown in Mountains gardens as well as giving wildlife more food and shelter sources,” she said.’

 

 

There’s a local Blue Mountains community story in this.

The above news item conveys more than a harbinger of pending closure; rather it tells publicly (about time, frankly) of an existential threat to the future of the Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service (Wildplant Rescue) not just from its current site, but because it has nowhere else to go, from its very existence – termination of the whole not-for profit business, of its local volunteers and of its support base membership – the lot facing oblivion!   

[NOTE:  An “existential threat” refers to a danger that could lead to the complete destruction or a permanent and severe degradation of something.  It’s a threat to the very being or future potential of something – aka Wildplant Rescue in this case.]

Wildplant Rescue continues to be a long-established successful not-for-profit local business very popular in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains of Australia and founded and run by its volunteers, and with a strong long-standing membership backing. 

Wildplant Rescue photo gallery:

We reckon this eviction threat to Katoomba’s much loved native nursery is yet another example of the distant NSW Government’s bureaucratic insular mindset and its ongoing anti-social culture of destroying local small businesses for the greed of selling off public land (native bushland) that it controls on a entrusted custodial basis on behalf of the community.  This eviction threat is bureaucracy selfishly seeking to profit from more bushland asset sales for inevitable housing development.  It is not good government.   

This closure threat to this unique endemic native plant nursery is unnecessary, unfair, contrary to the departmental landlord (DCJ’s) community focuses, and down right politically motivated by the incumbent NSW Minns Government bureaucracy and his politicians.  The NSW Government’s eviction threat is wrong and unjustifiable.  It’s threatened eviction of Wildplant Rescue is for non-genuine grounds.   Yet hypocritically, the incumbent NSW Minns Labor Government publicly has stated: 

“Landlords could be fined for making up a “non-genuine reason” for punting a tenant under NSW laws to scrap no-grounds evictions”.

[SOURCE: https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8709944/landlords-face-fines-for-non-genuine-eviction-reasons/ ]

 

This has been an election policy of Labor Chriss Minns before the NSW state election on 25th March 2023.   Subsequently, as Premier, Minns is overseeing his own government department, DCJ  as landlord using non-genuine reasons for punting Wildplant Rescue as tenant at the Clairvaux Community Centre site. 

 

DCJ’s Eviction Threat Facts:

(from our research)

1. Wildplant Rescue has been an active nursery business tenant at the site since 1998, so for a continuous 27 years;
2. DCJ has/does not charge(d) Wildplant Rescue for rent, for water nor electricity.  Yet this has been a mutual agreement between landlord DCJ and tenant –  since DCJ has from the outset acknowledged that Wildplant Rescue is a local not-for-profit organisation providing a highly valued community service – rescuing Blue Mountains native plants from development sites, propagation local native plants (including threatened species) and participating in key roles in the local Blue Mountains bush regeneration industry.  Further,  DCJ has over the years seconded the community support of Wildplant Rescue to ’employ’ youth offenders under undergoing criminal rehabilitation within the community, and WildPlant has obliged (although its petty cash box went missing a few times – subsequent measures are that no cash it kept on premises such that so little of it ever was);
3. DCJ for decades has chosen not to maintain its Clairvaux site in outer Katoomba.   It is this systemic bureaucratic failure by DCJ which underlies how now the dilapidated state of the buildings across its owned Clairvaux property site in outer Katoomba has been continually neglected and allowed to deteriorate by DCJ.  (See our recent ACRC photo gallery below); 
4. That DCJ’s outsourced site audit in 2020 reported that many buildings were not fit for purpose, remains wholly the responsibility of the DCJ as ongoing landlord for its systemic neglect of the buildings across the site.  It is no way any fault of the long standing good tenant, Wildplant Rescue;
5. The site is dominated by bushland, so it is in a bushfire zone, but then this is an ideal site for a native plant nursery – juxtaposed next to native bushland.   It  is not an appropriate site for social housing, which would  necessitate many hectares of intact native bushland to be first bulldozed, and considerable environmental harm and cost to DCJ;
6. DCJ’s eviction reasons to Wildplant Rescue are on spurious, non-genuine and unreasonable grounds.   So much for Labor Chris Minns’ no grounds eviction ban election promise.
7. On 24 October 2024 the NSW Parliament passed the (NSW) Residential Tenancies Amendment Bill 2024. The legislation is now the (NSW) Residential Tenancies Amendment Act 2024.  Relevant to Wildplant Rescue’s tenancy eviction threat, despite it being a business tenancy and not a residential tenancy, we raise pertinent sections of this new (NSW) Residential Tenancies Amendment Act 2024.  Why should not the same principles apply to a not-for-profit tenant?  That analytical article is pending on this website.   We thank readers for their patience.  We believe that no other website of journalist is covering this details issue as we are.  We seek the truth in such topics always.

 

 

Aboriginal Cultural and Resource Centre derelict – photo gallery:

And who seriously, would turn on the ACRC’s private fire hydrant and leave it running for weeks…months to waste precious drinking water?

We took a video of this upon our visit to the DCJ’s Clairvaux Community Centre site on Sunday 30th March 2025.

 

 

 

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DCJ’s eviction threat of Wildplant Rescue is a conjured bureaucratic notion for an impractical social housing estate white elephant in bushland some 2km outside Katoomba

 

It’s all a political ruse!

Wildplant Rescue’s nursery site occupies a very small parcel of rural bushland covering less than half a hectare.   The nursery is situated on a western boundary off Oak Street Katoomba as part of the quite sizeable 8 hectare DCJ Clairvaux bushland site. 

The Clairvaux site is geographically located within The Gully Water Catchment on the western edge of the regional township of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains region of Australia.   The nursery site is within native Eucalypt bushland and is some distance from Katoomba’s high street, which is more than 2 km away and an uphill walk. 

 

 

So, the Clairvaux site location is not exactly convenient to shops nor amenities and the only public transport an hourly bus service into town along Oak Street.  So the site suits being a place to propagate native plants, which is what Wildplant Rescue does and has been doing successfully on a shoestring budget consistently since 1999, so now twenty-six continuous years. 

 

A recent walk around of Wildplant Rescue’s current site by this author:

 

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Yet management has known about this eviction threat since before May 2020…

 

Let the truth be known – the founder of The Habitat Advocate and as Editor of this website, Steven Ridd, is a local of Katoomba in the Blue Mountains since 2001, so far, here for 24 years and going nowhere.    

Consistent with the conservation tenets of The Habitat Advocate organisation, Steven had been a committed and active member of Wildplant Rescue on and off since 2009, having first initiating contact with committee member Alison Hatfield back in April 2008.   Steven’s association included volunteering in various capacities and then joining the management committee.  It was an on-and-off participation as work and family priorities permitted such volunteering contributions, as many juggle with.

 

 

 

 

Back on Thursday 26^th February 2009, Steven attended his first meeting of Wildplant Rescue’s Management Committee Meeting, as a guest.   Minutes of that Management Committee Meeting of Thursday 26^th February 2009 are provided below. 

Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue is a community group and nothing herein is personally private, but only about this community-based not-for-profit organisation.  It’s website is appropriately in the public domain.  The Habitat Advocate Editor, Steven, remained a member of Wildplant Rescue on and off for more than a decade.   

However, Steven’s association with Wildplant Rescue abruptly ended upon him initiating his email letter of membership resignation from Wildplant Rescue to the management committee on 1st July 2020.  His reasons are twofold, as follows: 

 

ACTION 1:   Previously, on 24 June 2020, this author, at the time continuing to be on the Wildplant Rescue Management Committee had responded in an email to the committee thus:

“EVICTION THREAT

Importantly as well, Wildplant Management Committee needs to immediately respond to the notification of the imminent threat of eviction from its ‘lease’ at Clairvaux Community Centre 14 Oak Street Katoomba as warned by the NSW Department of Community & Justice (so-called) on 7^th May 2020, per Verity’s email.

It would be responsible to inform the membership of this threat ASAP.

Kind regards,

Steven”

 

However, the management committee decided NOT to follow Steven’s advice to issue a “broadcast’ email of this existential threat to the membership.. “until they had more definite information from the DCJ.” 

 

(2)  Two days later on 26th June 2020, Steven added in another email to the management committee:

“I re-emphasise that waiting for a governmental department formal response in writing may just well be an eviction notice.

This will place Wildplant Rescue in an invidious position with little wriggle room to negotiate or to seek a delay to consider options.

I have recommended to the Wildplant Committee they need to seek legal advice and to utilise the current government grant funding to finance such legal advice so as to be on the front foot, rather than waiting for the inevitable so to speak.

I do not see a reason for keeping this critical news from the Wildplant membership, who may well be able to assist the Committee somehow, or at least given an opportunity to do so.

As volunteer representatives of Wildplant Rescue, the committee should not feel compelled to take on this burden of the threat of eviction themselves and with it the likely folding of Wildplant with it, given no alternative site has been so far found viable.  I wish to add…as a committee member my dissent in not informing the membership of this predicament. They would be shocked to learn and if it were to eventuate without their knowledge, hold the committee to account and condemnation.  I am prepared to be a whistle-blower on this to the membership by July 14.  Surely the committee can come up with a responsible announcement to the membership that is informative without being alarmist.

I have the future viability of the Wildplant organisation and spirit foremost in my mind; whereas committee members can come and go.”

 

Steven Ridd as Founder, Conservation Consultant, and Editor of this website realised the existential threat by the governmental landlord to the very viability and future of Wildplant Rescue.  For the Management Committee members not to alert the membership and fight the government eviction went against the craw – against the very raison d’etre of The Habitat Advocate – publicly challenging ‘Government Greenwashing‘.

 

(3)  So, on 27th June 2020, Steven emailed his broadcast email to the 66 active members of Wildplant Rescue thus:

“Hello Wildplant Membership,

As a current voluntary member of Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service and serving on the management committee, I wish to express my repeated concerns since receiving an email from the President on May 8^th 2020 about a serious risk to the viability of our organisation.  I have tried my darndest multiple times within the committee communication that the broader Wildplant membership be made aware of this situation, but I have been unsuccessful, and only accused of “bullying” by the President, which I totally reject.

I refer you to the President of Wildplant Committee to explain.
My commitment and heart is with the conservation spirit and viability of Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service Inc.”

Sincerely,
Steven Ridd”

 

(4)  After then receiving a threatening email response from the president alleging “data breach” of Steven’s broadcast emailing to the members, Steven reflected upon his membership of Wildplant Rescue and on 1^st July 2020 emailed the committee stating he would not be renewing his membership.  (All email correspondences are retained on file).  

So that episode is approaching five years ago now.   Yet sadly, the same threat of governmental eviction by the same NSW Department of Communities and Justice still looms dark over Wildplant Rescue’s very existence.

 

(5)   This disturbing experience has affected us.  So we write this truth telling to share…

 

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This nursery’s landlord?  …NSW Department of Communities and Justice – seriously?

 

As mentioned above, the Clairvaux Community Centre overall property site is owned by the New South Wales (state) Government (through its delegated and so-called ‘Department of Communities and Justice‘ (DCJ). 

We remind readers that the ‘NSW Government’ essentially translates to being the authorised custodian on behalf of the citizens of New South Wales.  Australia is a democracy.  Assets of this state government are indeed the assets of the State and thus belong to this states citizens.   

 

Eviction for social housing out ‘woop woop’..?

This much valued Blue Mountains community run not-for-profit venture frankly threatens to unjustifiably cause its permanent demise.   Bloody why?!

Yet the current incumbent NSW Minns Labour Government’s Department of Communities and Justice has threatened designs on the site to flog it off for ‘social’ housing development. 

What a ridiculous notion!   The site is over 2km from Katoomba’s high street, so not exactly accessible for social housing such as like dilapidated northern Lurline is adjacent to Katoomba High Street. 

The site is not suited to planned housing development and certainly not for government so-called ‘social housing‘ concept. 

There are more sites in town near shops and the railway station far more suited for such government-funded social housing.   Whereas Wildplant Rescue is located over 2 km from town so every resident would need a car for starters.  It would require considerable costly demolition of many buildings, the killing hundred of native trees and bulldozing bushland to replace it with a conurbation of unneeded new housing – so another white elephant for the Blue Mountains.

The DCJ claims that the centre tenanted by the Blue Mountains Aboriginal Cultural Resource Centre has significant accessibility and bushfire safety non-compliance issues that are not able to be remedied under the property’s existing land zoning.

“The Department of Communities and Justice is committed to funding Aboriginal community controlled organisations to provide programs and services for the local Aboriginal community,” a spokesperson told the Gazette.

“DCJ recognises and appreciates the important work that the Blue Mountains Aboriginal Cultural Resource Centre undertakes in the community, and has been working with the Blue Mountains Aboriginal Cultural Resource Centre to assist in sourcing and transitioning to a more appropriate property.

“DCJ remains committed to working collaboratively with the Blue Mountains Aboriginal Cultural Resource Centre to assist them in their goal of providing services to their local community.”
At the Blue Mountains council meeting, the mayoral minute was supported unanimously. The council intends to write to the Department of Communities and Justice; Stronger Community Ministers; the Minister and Shadow Minister for Aboriginal Affairs; and Trish Doyle, state member for the Blue Mountains, advocating for investment in the renovations required so the NGOs can continue to operate from the DCJ’s Clairvaux Community Centre.

Since 1999 our nursery has been located at the Clairvaux Centre, which is Govt property in the portfolio of the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) The property was surplus to their requirements since the children’s homes closed in 1988. It was abandoned and derelict until Katoomba Neighbourhood Centre (KNC) got a licence from DCJ in 1998 to use the site for community groups. We moved in in 1999. KNC withdrew from the licence in 2009 and since then we have just remained on site developing the nursery, being totally ignored by the DCJ until they suddenly appeared in 2020 threatening eviction. While departmental decisions were still ongoing, we secured an official short term licence (lease) to continue operating on site for a further 15 months. This lease expired in September 2024. We have sent several requests for this term to be extended but now we have been verbally informed we will definitely be evicted soon, probably at the end of April.

 

The situation….

The DCJ have advised they wish to divest themselves of this property since they have determined that we are not a community organisation they can support and so they wish us to vacate by April this year. They tell us they have already offered the property to BMCC who have declined to accept without substantial accompanying funds to upgrade the premises, fair enough. KNC did massive work to upgrade the site for all the community groups to move in. Since then the residents of Clairvaux have done their best to keep the place operational but it definitely is in need of a major upgrade.

BMCC have indicated that we could be included in the Planetary Health Initiative on the old Katoomba Golf Course, but all we have so far are words, no action, and now we are running out of time! Moving a nursery is a huge endeavour and would take so much of our time and resources that without major assistance we may not be capable of achieving this!

Why bother to save us?….
I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how valuable our nursery is to the whole Blue Mountains community. We are a unique nursery growing and supplying real local natives which are mostly not available anywhere else. By supplying genetically sound local plants for thirty years to gardeners, council and bush regenerators, we have helped to connect our community to the bush and increase indigenous biodiversity. We also provide an opportunity for all our volunteers to find companionship in worthwhile and fulfilling volunteer work. We work with local schools and join in all the local environmental education events.

(Given all that, one wonders how we don’t fall under the auspices of the Department of “Communities”?)

It is a fact that we receive no regular support or funding from any source at all for this important work! We have been serving the community and our environment since 1995 by our own efforts only.

In 2015, the NSW Parliament’s Member for Blue Mountains Trish Doyle MP, wrote a letter to the Minister for Communities on our behalf asking for the Minister’s help to find a permanent home for us.

We had a meeting with representatives from the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) yesterday and they have allayed our fears of sudden eviction by stating that we will not be just ‘thrown out on the street’ come the end of April, but that we MUST relocate from the site “as soon as an alternative is found”. They have assured us they are still working hard to find a solution. (So this is the same situation since at least 2009!)

I hope the DCJ and the Minister may have more influence than us to come up with an alternative site, since in the more than 20 years we ourselves have been looking none has so far been identified. If no other site at all is identified we may still be forced to close.

So the situation is still grim for us as no other locations can be identified at this stage. If you have any solid ideas or any sphere of influence to help us find our forever home, (or have a spare billionaire in your pocket?) then please send us an email to bmwrskat3@gmail
And please keep sharing our petition and watch here for updates
We are all hoping for a miracle!

Yet, this is government hypocrisy, since directly across Oak Street from where Wildplant Rescue’s nursery has been for 26 years at number 14, is Blue Mountains Council’s bankrupted golf course.
Who plays golf in 2025?

In the process this same DCJ department has given no consideration to the future of this long-standing successful not-for-profit nursery business.  Wildplant Rescue since 1999 continues to It provide a much valued native plant service to the local community.

The Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service nursery and its office building occupies just a relatively small portion of the overall old ‘Clairvaux’ site situated on the southwestern bushland outskirts of Katoomba township site.   

The nursery is amongst a few other community-focused small business tenants.  However, over the years many of the former tenants have long departed and many of the remaining buildings are long abandoned and have been left to become derelict and vandalised.   There is no indication that the governmental landlord (DCJ) maintains the site or the buildings.

 

 

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A brief history of this ‘Clairvaux’ site – ‘Home’ of Horrors:

 

The overall old ‘Clairvaux’ site is an asymmetrical odd squarish shape between Oak Street and Cliff Drive bounded by Hall Street (street access), Cedar Street, Violet Street, Ficus Street and Cliff Drive.  See recent aerial photo map below.   

It is estimated that the overall area approximates 80,000 m² ( 8 hectares).  [NOTE:  113 Cliff Drive, Katoomba, NSW 2780 has a land size of 69,662 m² (^SOURCE) – so this raises the question that entire land parcel ownership between Oak Street and Cliff Drive remains is unclear.  Was a portion sold off?]   

The overall site (shown below) is characterised as being half remnant bushland and half sports fields and from researching Google Maps and onsite ground-truthing also dotted with about two dozen dispersed dwellings. 

The original building of the fibro-cement/asbestos clad NSW Government ‘Clairvaux Children’s Home‘  would seem to date back to the 1960s.  Various other brick and tiled dwellings of different but consistent style seem to date to the 1970s.   Many of the 1970s dwellings appear unkempt, else abandoned, derelict and indeed a few have been vandalised and left open to the elements.  There is also signs of illegal squatting. 

Clairvaux photo gallery:

 

There are currently multiple tenants, dominated by the Katoomba Christian Convention (KCC) over about three quarters of the site.

 

Clairvaux Children’s Home had been established at this site outside Katoomba NSW by the then NSW Government’s Child Welfare Department in 1969.  At the time, other state institutions like Mittagong, Brush Farm and Werrington Park were becoming overcrowded, so Clairvaux was opened (outside remote Katoomba) to house another 24 ‘wards of the state‘. 

In the beginning, the Home provided accommodation for boys who were described as having “intellectual disabilities”.  However, over the years, regrettably paedophilia rape stories emerged about the boys’ mistreatment and horrific sexual abuse.  Clairvaux Children’s Home had been allowed by the NSW Government to become an “offending institution”…

 

“Clairvaux Childrens Home was ultimately closed in 1990, remembered only by the boys (now men) who lived there.  In 2014, the grand old building was repurposed into the Clairvaux Community Centre and now serves as the operations centre for a wide range of community-based charities.”

[SOURCE: ‘Offending Institution: Clairvaux Children’s Home’,  ^https://kelsolawyers.com/au/institutions/clairvaux-childrens-home/]

 

We reproduce the published article of Kelso Lawyers herewith:

 

“Offending Institution: Clairvaux Children’s Home”

SOURCE:  ^https://kelsolawyers.com/au/institutions/clairvaux-childrens-home/

 

“Clairvaux Children’s Home was established at Katoomba NSW by the Child Welfare Department in 1969. At the time, other state institutions like Mittagong, Brush Farm and Werrington Park were becoming overcrowded, so Clairvaux was opened to house another 24 wards of the state.

In the beginning, the Home provided accommodation for boys who were described as having intellectual disabilities.
Clairvaux was closed in 1990, remembered only by the boys (now men) who lived there. In 2014, the grand old building was repurposed into the Clairvaux Community Centre and now serves as the operations centre for a wide range of community-based charities.

But what happened behind closed doors between 1969 and 1990 was disturbing, to say the least — but you won’t hear about it in the news. The boys’ complaints were brushed off by their houseparents and other members of staff on-site.

As wards of the state, they had nowhere else to turn. They lived out of sight of the community. They didn’t have a voice.
In this article, we share the story of one individual who suffered at the hands of a cleaner who worked at Clairvaux.

Active paedophiles roamed the grounds

Image: Care Leavers Association

 

A former resident of Clairvaux (who remains unnamed for privacy) was only six-years-old when he arrived at Clairvaux as a state ward. For the next 10 years, he was sexually abused weekly by a cleaner named “Darryl” who the victim remembered had red hair — a recognisable, memorable feature.

The victim was often sexually abused in Darryl’s work shed, located near the Home’s pool.

Darryl subjected the child to anal penetration every single time.

Believing that someone would help him or at least send Darryl away, the victim told his houseparents, Mr and Mrs Brady, about what was happening to him. Rather than reporting Darryl to the police, they ignored the complaints and the cleaner continued to work there… and continued to abuse the vulnerable child.

The victim then tried to report the abuse to the woman who cooked in the kitchen. She at least sent the child to be checked over by the nurse but again, nothing was done to help him.

With nowhere left to turn, the victim ran away many times but was caught every time.

Eventually, the Department removed him from Clairvaux and sent him to Reiby Youth Justice Centre, followed by Mt Penang Training School. This was a common practice for boys who were considered “difficult to manage”.

Reiby and Mt Penang are known for their harsh discipline and rampant sexual abuse. For this particular victim, moving to Reiby and Mt Penang was not a “light at the end of the tunnel”. Safety was not a luxury enjoyed by the boys who lived there.

If you were abused at Clairvaux, we want to hear your story

So little information is known about Clairvaux and the boys who lived there. Their stories have been lost in time — many are too scared to come forward and tell their stories. This is not uncommon; around 60% of survivors never disclose their experiences with abuse. Many are ashamed and fear they will not be believed.

There are many grown men who still haven’t spoken about their abuse by Darryl the red-haired cleaner, other on-site staff or by their own houseparents.

At Kelso Lawyers, we want to hear your story. Our specialist lawyers have helped hundreds of survivors achieve compensation across Australia. We will lend a sympathetic ear and most importantly, we will believe every word you say.

From here, we will make the compensation application process as simple and stress-free as possible. It is our goal to ensure you achieve the best possible outcome and achieve your own personal breakthrough.”

 

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The home buildings have been abandoned ever since.  They are situated off Cedar Street, at a quite separate location to the Wildplant Rescue nursery which is accessed off Hall Street over 250m around the corner.

Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service is wholly a community service.  It is the first of its kind in Australia, conceived and founded by local Blackheath village residents Mikla Lewis and Naturalist Wyn Jones in January 1993 to be a community driven, not-for-profit organisation, based in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales to help protect and promote the natural values of the Blue Mountains.   It operates to rescue and re-home wild native plants, and to propagate these in its  substantial dedicated in order to supply a range of locally endemic plants to local community bushcare groups, landscapers and to the local Blue Mountains Council for ongoing native habitat rehabilitation projects. 

Copy on an early newsletter to members ‘Wildplant Press:

The Blue Mountains region, despite being mostly world heritage listed in 2000 continues to come under housing land use development pressures from hundreds of building permits issued every year, with most of the development affecting unspoiled native vegetation.   

“Block by block, the bushland nature of the Blue Mountains urban area was being slowly but steadily lost, replaced by exotic gardens which deprive native wildlife of food and habit and create huge weed problems in surrounding bushland and National Park.    As the group evolved, the original idea of rescuing native plants developed into a bigger plan. The group became aware of the importance of protecting wildplant and wildlife communities in the Blue Mountains on a broader scale than solely rescuing condemned wildplants.  The collection of seeds and cuttings for propagation and on-selling to the local community was added to the concept.  The facilities at Mount Tomah Botanic Garden were used for propagation of rescued seeds and cuttings, which were then cared for by group members in their own gardens.”

[SOURCE:  ^https://www.wildplantrescue.org.au/about]

Indeed, the website of Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service was made possible by the Federal Government’s Stronger Communities Grant.

As well as engaging dozens of local community volunteers, the nursery also employs disabled young people as well as youth offenders undergoing rehabilitation and community re-adjustment through various governmental programmes.  These would all cease if the DCJ bean counters get their way. 

So what the hell is the Minns Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) thinking by destroying a community project – seriously?

DCJ’s website motto:  “We work with children, young people, adults, families and communities to support vibrant, sustainable and inclusive communities.” 

Is this seriously hypocritical or what?  DCJ’s threat to shut down this community nursery. 

What a hotch-potch of disconnected public service functions the DCJ is!  It combines a legal justice type portfolio with community services.  Cop this disparate mixed bag of its portfolios in DCJ’s Executive Structure:

1. Social Housing
2. Disaster Welfare
3. Courts and Tribunals
4. Victims Services
5. Child Protection
6. Disability
7. Seniors
8. Women’s Safety
9. Youth Justice
10. High Cost Emergency Arrangements
11. Law Reform
12. Volunteering
13. Sentencing
14. Disease Testing
15. Jury Service
16. Domestic Violence
17. Anti-Discrimination
18. Custodial Services (Prisons)
19. Legal Services
20. Public Defenders Office
21. Solicitor General
22. Aboriginal Outcomes
23. IT Services
24. Financial Performance and Transformation
25. Compliance
26. Anti-Slavery
27. Infrastructure and Assets

It’s a miscellaneous bucket list, and may as well be badged ‘Other’.

The last one here is managed by  Katherine Tollner.  She’d be the one going after  WildPlant Rescue in cahoots with Financial Performance and Transformation’s Bronwyn Roy and Social Housing’s (Homes NSW) Rebecca Pinkstone.   And how is Wildplant Rescue not recognised given that DCJ has a Volunteering programme?

Combined, DCJ’s has a bloated army of staff currently numbering 24,000 with a annual spend of $17 billion according to its 2024 annual report!  That is 13% of the NSW Government’s annual spend of $130 billion according to the Audit Office of New South Wales website.  It spends more than it earns.  Its accumulated debt is $137 billion, with official forecast annual interest payments on debt to be (conservatively) $8.6 billion for 2027-28.   So, Macquarie Street under the Liberal-National Coalition or Labor/Greens spends half of DCJ’s budget on interest repayments.

Well, Macquarie Street knows how to spend taxpayers’ money like proverbial drunken sailors.  It has programme sub-departments to conjure up new programmes to ensure it spends all it gets annually, so its budget doesn’t fall in subsequent years.  [NOTE:  One is familiar with the NSW governmental bureaucracy, having contracted as a management accountant for multiple NSW Government departments for over a decade].

In the case of the building that houses Wildplant Rescue’s administrative office and other separate outbuildings on the old Clairvaux site, the DCJ has neglected building maintenance and proper upkeep for many decades. 

DCJ’s current so-called Executive Director for its Infrastructure and Assets portfolio since Sep 2019 (less lockdowns),  Katherine Tollner, has three months governmental experience in a property portfolio as Executive Director Property, Fleet & Procurement at NSW Department of Planning, Housing and Infrastructure  (Jul 2019 – Sep 2019).

 

The NSW Minns Labor Ministry includes this Department Communities and Justice, so-called (DCJ).   But under Premier Minns, it is a mish mash mega department of unrelated portfolios as follows:

1. Attorney General: The Hon. Michael Daley SC, MP
2. Minister for Families and Communities, Minister for Disability Inclusion: The Hon. Kate Washington MP
3. Minister for Youth Justice: The Hon. Jihad Dib MP
4. Minister for Corrections: The Hon. Anoulack Chanthivong MP
5. Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness, Minister for Youth: The Hon. Rose Jackson MP
6. Minister for Veterans: The Hon. David Harris MP
7. Minister for Seniors, Minister for the Prevention of Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault: The Hon. Jodie Harrison MP  

So not one minister is accountable.  Which one is in charge of the eviction threat?  This mega department is supposed to be about ‘communities’ as its name suggests. 

The three non-government organisations that are the tenants at the Clairvaux Community Centre are:

1. Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue Service, the native plant nursery
2. The Blue Mountains Aboriginal Culture and Resource Centre (ACRC), which has been at Clairvaux for 27 years and claims “to provide crucial support services to the local First Nations community”
3. Leura Day Options, a disability support service provided by Greystanes Disability Service

These are each COMMUNITY based services.  Hello!

It’s website About Us page reads:

“We work with children, young people, adults, families and communities to support vibrant, sustainable and inclusive communities.”

 

 

 

 

SOURCE:  ^https://dcj.nsw.gov.au/about-us/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/about-dcj.html

At Clairvaux COMMUNITY Centre, the tenants facing eviction are a COMMUNITY nursery, an Aboriginal COMMUNITY centre and a disability support centre for disabled members of the local  COMMUNITY.

What hypocrisy!   The DCJ is also supposed to be about justice, as the name suggest – but it seems it’s more like ‘injustice’.

 

---

 

Council’s Centre for “Planetary Health” – seriously again?

 

In 2022, Blue Mountains councillors voted unanimously to oppose the eviction of the community groups that use Clairvaux by the DCJ!  The mayor will support Trish Doyle’s appeal to the Minister to reconsider.

That same year, the Blue Mountains Council purchased the adjacent defunct Katoomba Golf Clubhouse situated on 30 hectares of public land (long controlled by Council), Council decided to re-branded it a ‘Centre for Planetary Health‘…whatever that means. 

 

We point out that Blue Mountains Council had over previous decades, owned the public land of the Katoomba Golf Course, in its entrusted capacity as a custodian on behalf of the citizens of the Blue Mountains local government area it represents in trust.  But the various golf course club operators had gone bankrupt and ‘sympathetically connected’ councillors had bailed them out using ratepayer funds. Say no more.

During the time of 2022, as part of Council’s community consultation outreach invitation, Steven responded to Council in writing proposing that a small portion (1/2 hectare) of the old golf course site be considered by Council allocated to Wildplant Rescue’s nursery, given the imminent threat of the nursery’s eviction from its current site.  The current nursery site directly across the street from the old golf course at 14 Oak Street covers about that size. 

This relocation literally just across the street, would be the most convenient option for Wildplant Rescue out of other flagged site options considered, if eviction became imminent and unavoidable.  Other considered options had been Planet Ark’s former site in Wentworth Falls (north side) off 321 Blaxland Road and the original proposed site for the nursery at the old and disused Blackheath Tip (2 hectare) site off Ridgewell Road, situated about 600 metres along the road from the Great Western Highway, just east of the locked road gate for the Hanging Rock Parking Area.  See map below. 

 

 

 

Recall the lead newspaper article above:

 

‘The group had talks with council about a possible site during the planning of the old Katoomba golf course precinct.  But a spokeswoman for council said:

 “a plant nursery is not a permissible use on this site under the current zoning, and an amendment to the LEP would be required to include this and other additional uses.  That would be a lengthy process including making a submission to the state government and further public consultation.”….

 

 

In 2022, Blue Mountains City Council has voiced its concern over the threat of eviction for three community non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from the Clairvaux Centre in Katoomba.

At the council meeting of February 22, Labor mayor Mark Greenhill introduced a minute that detailed how the Department of Communities and Justice (DCJ) intends to end the lease of the Clairvaux Centre-based NGOs because of renovation costs.

“We need to stand up for those affected NGOS, they operate significant community support services to the Blue Mountains,” said Cr Greenhill. “When I heard about this I was horrified.”

Ward 1 Labor councillor, Suzie van Opdorp, who has an association with the Clairvaux Centre that extends back to the 1980s, also voiced her concerns over the eviction threat.

“These groups are feeling very anxious about their future,” she said. “As anyone would know who has lived and worked in the Mountains, there’s a scarcity of affordable office space for community organisations … These groups are really going to struggle if they’re put out to the open market to look for accommodation – some of them may not survive.  It’s clear the facility is worth a lot of money. Our state government has gone about selling lots of publicly owned assets, and I can imagine it would be very tempting to sell this off.”

Ward 2 Greens councillor Brent Hoare and Ward 1 Greens councillor Sarah Redshaw also expressed their disappointment with the proposed eviction, Cr Hoare accusing the state government of “demolition by neglect”.

Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) have finally answered our questions regarding our suggested involvement in the Planetary Health Initiative on the old Katoomba Golf Course.

BMCC have now clearly stated that this is not a viable option for us because of zoning and other issues which would take years of process to remedy, if at all.  They have also confirmed they have no other suitable site available within their portfolio to which the nursery could be relocated. Despite expressing their concern and saying they really value our contribution to the community, they say they can do nothing more to help us.

Yet local Blue Mountains Council has its new ‘Centre for Planetary Health‘ notion situated immediately across the road from Wildplant Rescue’s current site!

This relocation option beckons – more anon.

 

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References:

 

[1]  ‘Eviction looming‘, 20250115, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, p.1, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8863682/wildplant-nursery-in-katoomba-faces-uncertain-future/?msg=login

 

[2]  ‘Eviction Update‘, Blue Mountains Wildplant Rescue (website), ^https://www.wildplantrescue.org.au/blog/eviction-update

  

[3]  ‘NGOs may have to leave Clairvaux Centre due to renovation costs‘, 2022-03-18, by A.B.M. Smith, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7651440/clairvaux-eviction-threat/

 

[4]  ‘Plans still afoot to fix Blackheath tip‘, 2021-07-27, by Jennie Curtin, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7352079/tip-clean-up-still-pending/

 

[5]  ‘Eviction Threat for Wildplant‘, 2025-01-08, ^https://www.wildplantrescue.org.au/blog/eviction-threat-for-wildplant

 

[6]   ‘Landlords face fines for ‘non-genuine’ eviction reasons‘, 2024-07-28, by Jack Gramenz and Callum Godde, Australian Associated Press, ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/8709944/landlords-face-fines-for-non-genuine-eviction-reasons/

 

[7]  ‘Heritage for housing‘,  2021-09-13, Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper,  ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/7413951/heritage-for-housing/?msg=login

 

 

[9]   ‘Offending Institution: Clairvaux Children’s Home‘,  Kelso Lawyers website,  ^https://kelsolawyers.com/au/institutions/clairvaux-childrens-home/

 

[10]   ‘Landmark Win For Renters: NSW Rental Reform Bans No-Grounds Evictions and Caps Rent Increases‘, 2024-10-25, by Christine Lai, CityHub, ^https://cityhub.com.au/nsw-rental-reform-no-grounds-evictions-capped-rent-increases/

 

[11]   ‘Changes to rental laws‘,  NSW Government  (Minns Labor), 2024-10-24,  ^https://www.nsw.gov.au/departments-and-agencies/fair-trading/changes-to-rental-laws

 

 

  

About ‘Friends of ATLAS’

 

Back in 2014 at the start of spring in the Blue Mountains (Australia), Katoomba residents Maureen and Peter Toy from their home at 57 Megalong Street observed a man inspecting this magnificent tree on the verge out front.  They approached the man, who then told them that he reckoned the tree was “diseased” and so had to be “removed” (aka killed).  

The Toy’s campaign to save this magnificent tree was on in earnest!

ATLAS survives in good health, not diseased, as a 250 year old (in 2014) native Blue Mountains Ash (Eucalyptus oreades), with a still-growing canopy of 40+ metres high.

ATLAS pre-dates the settlement of Katoomba.  Indeed, ATLAS predates colonial settlement of Australian in 1788.  According to a learned Grade 5 arborist with long experience in these species, ATLAS probably started growing as a sapling from the 1760s – before the French Revolution, before the American War of Independence, before James Cook first set sail from Britain to explore the Pacific and find the rumoured great southern continent in 1768. 

This tree is an icon like the Three Sisters, yet hidden in Blue Mountains {city} Council’s assigned industrial area of Katoomba near the headwaters of Leura Creek and upstream of the popular tourist attraction of Leura Cascades and Leura Falls which tumbles into the Jamison Valley within the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area. 

According to advice 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.  Thousands of oreades were incinerated by the 2003 Centennial Glen bushfire, making the species now threatened in the upper Blue Mountains.

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 industrial Katoomba. Over the many decades, this tree has withstood fierce windstorms, bushfires, (dodgy) road-widening and even industrial development all around it.”

 

With a canopy about 40 metres high and a trunk girth of over 5 metres (measured at 1.4m above the ground ^SOURCE), the tree has become a recognised icon and reference point in the area. It is home to a large flock of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos that roosts in the tree daily. 

 

Campaign Background

 

Some years prior in 2012, The Habitat Advocate’s Conservation Consultant Steven, had had his own concerns about the new development taking place behind the tree at 59 Megalong Street Katoomba, and decided to take some before-shot photos; the following three taken on 11th January 2012.

 

 

 

 

So two years hence, with the new ‘mega industrial park’ constructed adjacent to the tree, the consulting arborist David Ford, whom Maureen and Peter had talked to, became the arch enemy to the preservation of the tree.   

Peter couldn’t understand why the tree was NOT already listed on Council’s Blue Mountains Significant Tree Register or why anyone would want to harm it.  The tree is situated on a  community verge (Council-community land) and for the prior few years there had been an industrial development constructed behind it.  

Peter and Maureen were 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 sided with the Toys and together formed an informal local community activist group ‘Friends of ATLAS’ – determined to save and protect this magnificent native tree.   Their daughter Angelique started up an  online petition to garner local community recognition and support to protect the tree. 

Peter reckoned at the time: 

“It’s early days but he is ready for a sustained fight.”

 

A fellow local supported commented:

“Dear Friends,

There is an emergency right now, to save one of the oldest Blue Mountain Ash trees that we have left.. The tree is now known as ‘Atlas’. You may well know this magnificent tree located at 59 Megalong Street, Katoomba. It has a girth of 5 metres and a growing canopy of 40 metres high. The tree has been estimated to be between 200 and 300 years old,  I love this tree and hope you will help us save it 🙂

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT

Peter H. Marshall”

 

A spokesperson from Blue Mountains {city} Council confirmed that the tree is situated on council verge land and not on the industrial development site behind.   Research into the planning approval for the industrial development behind revealed that Council had stipulated in its development consent conditions that the tree must not be harmed by the development activity.

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

Council’s spokesperson at the time clarified that council had not received any request for the tree to be destroyed.   The community battle to save this tree from Council neglect and indifference was set to ensue.

 

Save ATLAS Campaign

 

The Habitat Advocate took a particular interest in saving this tree shortly after noticing the sign on it ‘SAVE OUR TREE‘, placed there by Peter and Maureen in September 2014. 

Our Conservation Consultant, Steven, had first observed the sign on the tree whilst a driver for Blue Mountains Bus Company as he sat in a bus in the depot one morning doing his bus pre-checks.

After his shift, Steven took a chance that the sign’s maker lived nearby and so knocked on the door of the house adjacent at 57.  Peter and Maureen opened the door and the contact was established.  [Editor’s Note: Peter and Maureen have long since relocated back to their home town in Western Australia]. 

Steven suggested the tree deserved a name, as a brand for a public campaign to save it from being killed.  Maureen affectionately called it the ‘Atlas’, after the Greek God, appropriately for its towering size and for be so enduring.   In Greek mythology, Atlas was one of the most famous Titans, the son of Iapetus and the Oceanid Asia (or, possibly, Clymene). He was the leader of the Titan rebellion against Zeus, and he got a fitting punishment after the end of the Titanomachy: he was condemned to eternally hold up the sky.  The etymology of the name ‘Atlas’ is from the ancient Greek word τλῆναι “to endure”.  

This is a Roman statue of Atlas at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples in Italy.  It is believed to be the oldest, dating from 2nd century AD.

 

Steven suggested a change of sign to generate more passerby interest, given that adjoining Megalong Street is a busy thoroughfare between the industrial precinct of Katoomba and Leura.

 

“Threatened” was a play on words, since it had three meanings, intentionally. 

Firstly, this flora species, a ‘Eucalyptus oreades’, is locally endemic to this small area of the Central Upper Blue Mountains, that is it is wildly found nowhere else on the planet and the species natural habitat and number of trees have been decimated by human deforestation since British colonisation of the area from the 1870s such that the remnant number of trees can almost be counted.   This species and its ecological community is likely botanically deemed “threatened”, that is, it is likely to become extinct in the foreseeable future.

Secondly, this extremely large and mature, yet healthy specimen, could be more than 250 years old and so an even rarer example of the species.  The number of such specimens growing in what once was their wild habitat may well be currently counted on one’s hands. 

Thirdly, more imminent a threat is that the industrial developer who owns the site immediately behind this tree has intention of having it killed the tree in order to make way for some greedy notion of providing an overflow of customer parking on the verge outside his site.

Peter Toy quickly set up a dedicated Facebook Page (now defunct) in September 2014, calling it ‘Friends of ATLAS’.     Maureen and Peter’s daughter Angelique established an online petition on the Change.org website.

 

 

Fact Finding

 

As the publicity campaign to save the tree got under way, The Habitat Advocate considered some fact finding needed be done about the compliance of this development with Council’s conditions of consent, and in order to clarify the justification posed by the consulting arborist for killing this magnificent and otherwise healthy native tree.   

Suspicions were that the arborist had assessed the tree on behalf of his client the property developer and had concluded what the developer wanted – the tree’s removal to make way for concrete paving of the Council verge to facilitate increased vehicle parking for the new industrial site.

Enquiries to Blue Mountains {city} Council confirmed that the development at 59 Megalong Street Katoomba was recorded by Council as ‘Industrial Development DA X/435/2010‘.  A number of publicly available documents were obtained by The Habitat Advocate in relation to this development threat.

 

[Editor’s Note: 

This habitat story is to be continued sometime in spring 2023, due to other pressing commitments that we currently have.  The story shall be told in a number of parts discussing the SAVE ATLAS Campaign, its goals, strategy, opponents, supporters, relevant framework (planning and legal), research, publicity and ongoing updates.  Unlike other attempts by Blue Mountains conservationists to save valued trees, especially endemic natives like this one,  this conservation campaign succeeded and the campaign story shall provide not just a wonderful Blue Mountains story about a community coming together to protect natural heritage but also shall be instructive to others facing similar challenges of how to win against often overwhelming odds.  Future parts to this story shall be posted in turn as a lead article on the front page of this website, The Habitat Advocate, which continues to be based in The Gully Catchment in the town of Katoomba since 2001.  We thank our readers for their interest, support and patience].   

 

 

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Further Reading:

 

[1]   “Circumference is measured at 1.4 metres above ground level. If the tree forks, record the smallest circumference between 1.4m and the ground below the lowest fork“, National Register of Big Trees, ^https://www.nationalregisterofbigtrees.com.au/pages/tree-measurement

 

[2]   ‘A Blue Mountains iconic tree at risk‘, 2012-10-10, ^https://habitatadvocate.com.au/a-blue-mountains-iconic-tree-at-risk/

 

[3]   

 

[4]   

 

 

 

Sometime back in early 2022, Blue Mountains {city} Council, in its insular ‘ivory tower’ bureaucratic wisdom, reckoned that wasting thousands of grant funding from the NSW Government on a so-called sandstone ‘yarning circle‘ for The Gully in Katoomba would be a public relations hoot!   

Council’s yarning circle site was strategically chosen for maximum PR exposure for visitors to The Gully, just by the lake off Madge Walford Fountain carpark, just off Gates Avenue in Katoomba.   Sure enough, the project, completed in February 2022, found its way to a press release in the local newspaper, the Blue Mountains Gazette, on 20th April 2022 entitled ‘Transforming The Gully’.

 

This press release states that this new stone yarning circle on..

“the edge of Catalina Lake in The Gully is slowly being transformed after the decade-long work of a vibrant bushcare group, Blue Mountains council’s environment team, the Gully Traditional Owners and a special NSW environmental trust grant…. a yarning circle at the Gully and a YouTube bird watching tour are now just some of the welcome additions to the restorative Bushcare and Swampcare work.”

A stone yarning circle being part of restorative bushcare?  Seriously? 

Council previously had approved three similar stone circles nearby in The Gully back in 2008.  That’s where an external grant of some $600,000 went – on an Aboriginal-only interpretative history path.  

Sure, the dedicated group of volunteers of Garguree Swampcare Group who frequently convene in The Gully to weed out invasive plant species and plant out locally native plants do certainly effect restorative bushcare.  The group formed a decade ago back in 2011 under the New South Wales Government’s Landcare NSW umbrella (not Council’s).  As a local, the regenerative on-ground results of this volunteer group’s Swampcare efforts are readily observed by one walking around The Gully, especially noted inside the Dunlop Corner section of the old racetrack with the removal of all the blackberry and cotoneaster and the landscaping and planting out our of locally native plants and trees. 

Former members of ‘The Friends’ would be well pleased that the native habitat restoration in this creek valley has continued since 2011.  Yet sadly, no mention is made of the 27+ years of the Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Bushcare Group [1989 – 2016] and their related subgroups who continue to work in adjacent McRae’s Paddock and Selby Reserve, contributing many thousands of volunteer hours weeding The Gully of invasive plant species.   Let the truth be told.  

The Habitat Advocate has been based in The Gully Water Catchment since 2001 and over the two decades we have become very familiar with this rather special creek valley.   Our editor walks around it weekly for exercise and peace of mind in Nature, not just the old racetrack, but south from the aquatic centre through MacRaes Paddock, Selby Reserve and to Katoomba Falls.   He observes the goings on – the creek health, the landslips, continuing off-leash dog walkers, and the incremental new housing replacing the bushland along Wellington Street, etc.  

Council’s press release states that the group’s volunteer co-ordinator David King (being a son of a former Gully resident) has been..“slowly mulching, planting, moving logs and stones to create habitat for the amazing number of aquatic birds that frequent the Lake – 100 have been recorded..The group is working hard to restore the delicate environment at the headwaters of the Katoomba Falls Creek and make it a happy place for new memories.”

The Habitat Advocate supports David King’s Swampcare leadership, wholeheartedly.

Council’s press release goes on…

‘Mr King said for thousands of years Garguree – which means The Gully – was a campsite that sustained the Gundungurra and Darug people. Indigenous communities were displaced when council approved a car racing track – the Catalina circuit – in 1957. It has been recognised as an Aboriginal place since 2002.

The 81 hectare site* is being cared for with the help of a Protecting our Places NSW Environmental Trust grant…Mr King said the lake habitat is linking with the riparian corridor works along Gedumba (sic) Creek and all the restoration works in the middle swamps and McRaes Paddock.  The whole 81 hectares of The Gully is an incredible diverse wildlife haven and safe corridor linking up to the valley. While working around the lake it was decided that it would be a beautiful spot to also create a yarning circle on the lake for the Gully Traditional Owners and community to meet and share stories and cuppas.”

Garguree Swampcare has previously won the prestigious regional Indigenous Land Management Landcare Award in 2017.’

 

[* Editor:  “81-hectare site?” 

The Gully Water Catchment covers 290 hectares/2.9 km²  Dr Fred Ball’s 1993 Plan.  So, Mr King’s 81 hectares represents a tiny 28% remnant of the creek valley’s water catchment area.  However in fact, Blue Mountains {city} Council’s 2021 Plan at page 17 states the land area is 73.1 hectares as per the extract below, not 81 hectares; that is, unless Council’s doing another sneaky ursurp of its zoned community lands?…]

 

Again, The Habitat Advocate supports this habitat restoration endeavours wholeheartedly.  But the timing of Council’s yarning circle is apposite.   It took place during the period between July 2018 and October 2021 when Council was undertaking a revision of its 2004 Plan of Management for The Gully Aboriginal Place.  Yet in both Council’s 2004 plan and subsequent 2021 plan, ‘yarning circles’ were not suggested, discussed, featured, nor budgeted for.   

Instead, Council’s latest ‘yarning circle’ in The Gully seems to be some unplanned whim from grant funding undisclosed and outside any of the now 19 plans for and reports on The Gully.  Maybe it was some bureaucrat’s whim within council with connections to the Parks Service to utilise excess stone blocks over-ordered for heli-upgrading of nearby hiking tracks in the national park.   Voilà, another Council stone yarning circle crops up!

Anyway, so today we checked out this Council’s yarning circle down by the old artificial dam; a ten minute walk each way and took a few photos of it.   Currently in the depth of winter, sitting on these fifteen cold hard sandstone blocks for too long would likely bring on a bout of haemorrhoids, so wise to bring a rug or two.   The following photo was taken from the steps leading down to the lake, which originally provided the main access for swimming in the 1940s and 1950s before Council built its aquatic centre.  Note the old changing sheds in the background.

 

Now this new ‘yarning circle’ is situated right by existing picnic tables on the lawn area behind next to the old racetrack and these serve to provide quite adequate seating for picnicking and if you like, some yarning.   So it is an extraneous folly indeed.

For some reason Council in its wisdom, also recently decided to remove the only rubbish bin on this side of the lake. 

 

This is possibly because there is no Council ranger assigned to empty it. Instead  there is a bin at the Madge Walford Fountain carpark side of the lake, and two of Council’s aquatic centre car park, meaning Council’s ranger now doesn’t have to walk far from his/her car to empty them – must be to do with OH&S walking.

Speaking of safety, the site of this yarning circle is just metres down slope from a small freshwater spring that causes the grass in the vicinity to be constantly boggy.  The site was originally a sedge swamp within the original natural riparian zone of the central creek; that is, before the artificial lake was constructed.  The problem is that constant ground water seepage drains around and down the only steps leading to this new yarning circle below.   

 

This is simply local knowledge by those like The Habitat Advocate who know this creek valley intimately.  But Council in its ivory tower mindset constantly chooses not to consult with locals knowledge about its actions in The Gully.   Yes, Council must first legally consult with The Gully Traditional Owners (GTO) as custodians of The Gully Aboriginal Place, yet despite none living within ‘Cooee!‘ of The Gully. 

But the GTO would not have designed this folly and not at this location.  When the interpretative walking pathway was designed, a primary feature was to enable disabled access so the pathway and boardwalks were all pre-designed to facilitate wheelchair access throughout. 

 

Key problem with this Interpretation Pathway biasely tell an Aboriginal-only story, not the true account about dispossessed poor folk who were Black and White and mixed.  Council funded any of it, rather all the funding was external – NSW Government and Rous Water in the Northern Rivers region.  Council did not seek or obtain a development application.  Council did not seek or obtain any local community consultation, but only from the Gully Traditional Owners who were by 2008 usurping control in all decision making of The Gully to the deliberate exclusion of all other locals.  Council deliberately and hatefully ostracised The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creel Valley Inc., who had undertaken considerable bushcare rehabilitation and lobbied Council since 1989 to protect this creek.

Council did not seek or obtain a development application.    Council received no official clearance. It just thought it up and did it.

Sound familiar?

Apocalypse Now quote:  

“Kurtz staged Operation Archangel with combined local forces, rated a major success.

He received no official clearance. He just thought it up and did it.

What balls.

They were gonna nail his ass to the floorboards for that one.

But after the press got a hold of it, they promoted him to full colonel instead.

Oh, man, the bullshit piled up so fast in Vietnam, you needed wings to stay above it.”

^https://movie-sounds.org/war-movie-sound-clips/quotes-with-sound-clips-from-apocalypse-now/he-received-no-official-clearance-he-just-thought-it-up-and-did-it

 

Former residents of The Gully (pre 1957-59) are elderly and many are observed by this author as being physically disabled, having attended a number of invited gatherings with former residents in The Gully.    This points to this ‘yarning circle’ down by the lake, accessible by only by the steps, as being is a Council thing and likely contrived by some person without knowledge in perhaps Council’s PR department or by another one of Council’s external consultants driven in from distant Sydney.

Since at least 1981, a whole series of plans and reports to local Blue Mountains {city} Council on this creek valley have prescribed many environmental rehabilitation actions to be undertaken throughout.  However precious little has been done by council as the custodial land manager.  For instance, the ‘Bell Report’ of 1993 (plan #8) to Council on this creek valley in its executive summary on pages 6 and 7 identifies some sixty recommended actions for this creek valley of varying priorities as part of a prescribed environmental management plan. [Read More].  Had Council acted upon these recommendations then the Gully would have been truly transformed back to approximating its original ecological landscape and health as it was before the colonising usurpation since perhaps the mid-1800s.   

Neither the Bell Report nor any of the 19 plans/reports (at least) on this creek valley include any ‘yarning circle’ nor ‘stone circle’, nor even a ‘crop circle’. 

 

Blue Mountains {city} Council has already approved three other such stone block gathering places or ‘yarning circles’ in The Gully.  These were part of its approval in 2008 for an Aboriginal interpretative meandering pathway concreted inside its terminated Catalina Park motor racing circuit.  It serves to showcase the history of prior Aboriginal residents of The Gully – which Council forcibly evicted between 1957 and 1959 for its motor racing mates.

Evidential of the truth, Council’s meeting minutes recorded this back in 1959:

 

So why the need for a fourth stone circle in The Gully?  And why position it adjacent to an invasive dam that was built by non-Aboriginal people over the top of the pre-existing riparian zone of the creek?

Here we show Council’s other three ‘stone circles’ in The Gully.

 

 

 

 

The invasive non-Aboriginal history of this creek valley

Council’s stone ‘yarning circle’ is artificial just like the artificial lake adjacent.  It is pure aesthetics and seems to be a public relations ploy by Council to showcase: “Look, Council is actually doing something constructive in The Gully!”

But Council’s latest haemorrhoid yarning circle achieves precious little in rehabilitating the riparian zone habitat of this decades-long neglected and abused creek valley. 

For starters, the lake adjacent is actually a dam that was constructed post-WWII over the top of the old ‘Frogs Hollow’ spring/swamp riparian area of Katoomba Falls Creek by local tourist entrepreneur at the time, one Horace Gates.  It was part of his grand scheme to impose a carnival amusement park called ‘Catalina Park’ in the valley.. offering ‘every facility for fun and food’. 

Horrie in 1948 seconded the shell of an old Catalina PBY-5 flying boat for his new dam as a unique tourist attraction to his amusement park.   By 1949 he arranged for local council to supply 100,000 gallons of water for it, metered at 1/6d. per thousand litres.  [Council of the Blue Mountains meeting minute :’Supply of Water to H. Gates for Catalina Park’, dated 11th January 1949, 7 pm, page 3.] 

Horrie also paid £500 towards the £2,500 cost of constructing new Plantation Street westward between Cascade Street and his Catalina Park that same year.  [Council of the Blue Mountains meeting minute :’Plantation Street: Katoomba’, dated 15th February 1949, 7:30 pm, page 183.]   

Horries’ new ‘Catalina Park’ subsequently served to provide various attractions and activitioes including speedboat rides, tearooms, miniature train,  a Ferris wheel, merry-go-round, swimming pool and a Giggle House showing Charlie Chaplin films.  

 

Horrie also locally owned an amusement parlour on the north-west corner of Katoomba and Waratah Streets, as well as his ‘Homesdale Guesthouse‘ at 207 Katoomba Street including its Wentworth Cabaret nightspot downstairs.  Subsequently the guesthouse was replaced to become the much larger Katoomba Corps branch of the Salvation Army, then in 2021 it was converted into backpacker accommodation of international Youth Hostels Association (YHA). 

 

Katoomba tourism was Horrie’s thing 1920s into the 1950s.  He was a relatively successful entrepreneurial businessman of Katoomba.  But he used his wealth to be one of the many usurpers of The Gully. 

But Horrie cared not for the welfare or quite enjoyment of the  adjacent residents of The Gully.  They were mostly Aboriginal impoverished families subsisting in meagre self-made shacks in the bush with no utilities – having no running water, no electricity, no gas, may be septic tanks pre-1907.  Thereafter Council imposed town sewage be trenched throughout the creek valley, yet not connected to any of the Gully shacks (councillors didn’t want to encourage what they regarded as a shanty bush settlement on the edge of town).

A walking visit to The Gully these days reveals interpretative signage record of the simple subsistence living conditions that former residents endured before Council’s forced evictions and calling in the bulldozers 1957-1959. 

 

May be there was one toilet block for the entire Gully if they were lucky.  May be that tiny brick one below Wells Street, or was it a more recent addition for overnighting campers attending motor race meets later in the 1960s and 1970s?

By the early-1950s, Catalina Park as then an amusement park was pretty dated and run down.   When Horrie died, Council named Plantation Street adjacent as ‘Gates Avenue’ and Horrie’s dam as ‘Catalina Lake’.  Council in the 2000’s renamed a nearby short portion of Farnells Road as ‘Catalina Avenue’ as an appeasement gesture to the petrol-head fraternity bemoaning Council’s 2002 closure of their Catalina Park motor racing circuit just by the lake.  

This use of The Gully was all entirely non-Aboriginal use and exploitation by wealthy outsiders – the amusement park (1946-1950s) followed by the raceway (1957-2001).  So the pertinent question in relation to this fourth stone yarning circle by Council is why spend money complementing an unnatural part of The Gully. This is just another whim, indeed a folly.

Who’s idea was it?  How much did it cost?  Why did this civil works project take priority over many other priority ecological rehabilitation actions in the valley as prescribed by many plans of management since at least 1981?  Surely, given the latest Plan of Management of October 2021, the use of that “special NSW environmental trust grant” as quoted in the newspaper article, should have applied to the action items listed in that plan.  The 2021 plan lists a mere 6 action items on page 111.  , just 10% of the 1993 plan. 

In comparison to the 1993 plan of management’s 60 recommended action items, Council’s 2021 plan list a mere 6 ‘governance actions’ on page 111 budgeted to cost $54,950.  How much did this fourth stone yarning circle project cost?  On page 113 indicates a massive budget of $4,742,910 to implement the latest plan of management.  But this list is not about habitat restoration of The Gully, its all about human usage as the following cost summary reveals:

  

 

Council’s 2021 plan includes a pie-in-the-sky budget totalling a massive $4,742,910.   Co-incidentally Council’s 2004 plan budgeted a similar $4,682,000.   Didn’t happen. 

Council’s 1996 (Connell Wagner) Plan listed many distinct habitat restoration focuses and action plans for each portion of the creek valley, then respectively named Frank Walford Park, McRaes Paddock, Katoomba Park, and included Katoomba Golf Course.  Featured in all four portions included regenerating of re-vegetation degraded areas and rehabilitating swamps and bushland.  Budgeted total costs came in at $794,500. 

Didn’t happen.

Council’s 2021 plan won’t happen.  This latest plan is set to be mothballed by Council again, because like the 18 previous reports and plans on this riparian valley, the 2021 plan contains the usual escape clause to allow Council to do again nothing in The Gully.   A funding excuse.  Council is legally compelled by the New South Wales Government to prepare a plan of management for a public (community) land it controls/owns such as The Gully, but Council in its history is yet to seek the requisite budgeted external funding for any plan for The Gully in order to complete the recommended action items.

May we suggest to the insular thought bubble that is Blue Mountains {city} Council that rather than it have imposed a 4th Celtic yarning circle in The Gully for the rarely seen Aboriginal folk around, that Council instead focus its cash on more pressing public safety measures in and around The Gully?  

Below is one such pressing public safety problem deserving Council’s prompt maintenance. 

It’s possibly the largest pothole currently besetting the Blue Mountains at some 4×2 metres in size! 

It’s situated down the very steep road of Warriga Street on the eastern approach to The Gully.  Such being the months of this pothole’s  deterioration, one almost needs 4×4 vehicle to currently negotiate through it!

 

Further Reading:

 

[1]  Garguree Swampcare Group, ^https://garguree.bushcarebluemountains.org.au/

 

[2]  Catalina Park (motor racing circuit 1961-2001), ^https://www.racingcircuits.info/australasia/australia/catalina-park.html

 

[3]  (Photos of Catalina Park), Blue Mountains Library, ^https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_mountains_library_-_local_studies/2627033062/in/photostream/ | ^https://www.flickr.com/photos/blue_mountains_library_-_local_studies/2493550745

 

[4]  Catalina Park (amusement park 1946-1950s), Blue Mountains Local Studies, ^https://bmlocalstudies.blogspot.com/2010/06/catalina-park-katoomba.html

 

While exercising through Katoomba Falls Creek Valley in the Blue Mountains last October, this author came across this sign.

 

How would one like to see the future of The Gully..for the next 15 years?   Have my say?   Internet submissions only?

Local government authority Blue Mountains Council in about 2007 renamed this natural valley west of Katoomba ‘The Gully’ because that is the affectionate name it had from the previous residents of mostly regional Aboriginal heritage extending back many thousands of years.

Since 2001, this author has lived 50 metres from the native bushland valley we know as Katoomba Falls Creek Valley, or Sydney Water’s defined Upper Kedumba River, or as Amusement Parlour tourism businessman Horrace Gates’ Catalina Lake, or as Blue Mountains Council’s sponsored car racing enthusiasts (1957-2003) as Catalina Park, or as NSW National Parks call the valley, ‘The Gully’.  

Such mixed interpretation of this watercouse valley reflects its history as complex, contested and ongoing culturally problematic.  Yet since 1957, here we are in cultural denial in 2019.

In 2002, The Valley was unilaterally declared ‘The Gully’ by Blue Mountains Council – typically again no community consultation.  

Ok, so what’s in a name? 

‘The Gully – Aboriginal Place’ under the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 by the New South Wales government was justified out of recognition of the Valley’s significance holding pre-contact Aboriginal sites, post-contact settlements, its ongoing occupation by Aboriginal People until forced eviction in 1957 (to make way for bulldozing a racetrack), and by lobbying and evidence from local Aboriginal Gundungurra elder, the late Aunty Dawn Colless.

All good.  But ‘Aboriginal Place’ only?  Says who?  By which Blue Mountains heritage Aboriginal people/clan?  The Gundungurra Traditional Owners Inc. only and so denying the rights of all other Gully residents and descendants – Aboriginal (eg: Dharug or otherwise) or of non-Aborigines of The Gully?

This is at best Council prejudice and community divide and conquer; at worst Council prejudice against non-Gundungurra, non-Aborigines.

Aboriginal Place declaration while historially valid,  was democratically invalid.  The NSW Government declaration of such was selective and secret behind Blue Mountains Council’s closed doors – a frequent setting to get things done without pesky outspoken community awareness.

Trust?  Blue Mountains Council?

From 1988 to 2016 local residents action group The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc., under the inspiring and consultative leadership of the late Neil Stuart BSc., had championed a local community cause to save the Valley.  From grassroots local resident motives, the Friends aims were from the outset consistently to value and respect the remnant environmental values of the Valley, to lobby to remove the invasive racetrack,  to restore the Valley’s ecological integrity throughout and to foster a local community management structure to underpin the Valley’s environmental protection and rehabilition.

Basically The Friends set in train a local community management structure to care for country – the Valley as we called it.   But Blue Mountains Council hegemony, situated less than 200 metres east of the Valley, corporate-culturally frustrated and ostracised The Friends out of having any say, participantion or rights in caring for the Valley.

As the awareness of the tragic local Aboriginal past was realised, The Friends respected, engaged and partnered with former residents of The Gully and their descendants (irrespective of racial background).  The goal was to properly protect, rehabilitate and manage this acknowledged special place collaboratively.  It was a noble mission and undertaking.  The activism occupied core Friends members half an adult lifetime, proudly.

Yours truly joined The Friends’ fight to save the valley for just five years from 2002 to 2007 until other commitments took family priority.

The nearly three decades of local resident activism well exceeds the capacity of this article.  Suffice to say that the resultant ‘Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Revised 2004’ achieved not just a desired and just termination to the car racing invasion, but signalled an opportunity and hope for local community partnering with Blue Mountains Council and NSW Parks Service to manage and restore the valley as a valued natural place.

So there is this new signage put up by Blue Mountains Council.   After fourteen years, Blue Mountains Council deems The Gully Plan of Management is up for renewal, whatever that means.

Blue Mountains Council claims “This Plan of Management (POM) is fourteen years old and does not reflect the contemporary cultural values and perspectives held by the Gully community.”   But what are these?  

The local Katoomba community in and around The Gully continues to be shut out of secret talks with the parks service and only select Aborigines – The Gundungurra Traditional Owners Inc. – the legal custodians of most of the valley as appointed by closed shop local council with absolute control over the valley since 2007.   

Council entered into an exclusive co-management agreement with The Gully’s traditional owners in 2008, recognising the owners’ deep connection to the place.  What about the Dharug?  What about other community members who share a deep conservation interest in preserving and rehabilitating the Valley’s ecological values?

Council claims: “Funding from the Office of Environment and Heritage, NSW Heritage Grants – Aboriginal Heritage Projects has been made available to review and up the Plan of Management for the Gully.”   But what are these?

“Engagement and consultation with former Gully residents, their descendants and other stakeholders”.  Who’s a stakeholder?  Blue Mountains Council?  The NSW Parks Service?   This is not made clear.  What about the local community, former members of The Friends of Katoomba Falls Creek Valley Inc. who volunteered years of their lives to save and protect the Gully/Valley from all sorts of harm and development threats?

Council instructs:  “The Plan of Management review is being undertaken by Blue Mountains City Council in cooperation with the Gully Traditional Owners Inc.”

Why exclusively this one group of limited Aboriginal representation?  Convenience?  Simplicity?  Becuase the planned outcome has already been decided?   What about council consulting with Aboriginal Dharug residents actually born in the Valley/Gully?  What about consulting with the immediate  local community irrespective of racial background?

Council’s initiated review was made public from about October 2018. 

Spell check?

Council instructs that in preparing its revised Plan of Management, its process will include:

1. Engagement and consultation with former Gully residents, their descendants and other stakeholders
2. Assessment of relevant information and knowledge to be included in the revised plan
3. Assessment and determination of current management issues and future opportunities for the Gully
4. Updating of the management policies and the action plan for the Gully
5. Prioritisation and costing of actions and works

 

Except that the entire process is secret.  Is it to play into the hands of a few powerful and influential people?  Does local council have something to hide from the local community and non-Gundungurra former residents and their decendants until commercial contracts in confidence are signed and its too late to object? 

Council instructs:  “The existing Plan of Management does not include the Katoomba Falls sports fields or the Tourist Park.  The inclusion of these areas into the Gully plan of Management is a significant change from the existing plan.”   What is the reason and motive for including more land into the proposed new plan of management?

Council instructs:  “The revised Plan will be developed with reference to the Local Government Act 1993, the Crown Lands Management Act 2016, the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974, and with the Guideline for Developing Management Plans for declared Aboriginal Places. (OEH 2012) The plan also needs to consider the future implications of the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill 2018, which is earmarked to replace functions of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 in relation to the management and protection of Aboriginal places.”

Council acknowledges:   ‘The Gully’ was a place where Gundungurra, Darug and other Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people lived as a fringe community from around the 1890’s onward over a number of generations.”

 

Council’s References Used:

 

• Local Government Act 1993 (NSW)
• Crown Lands Management Act 2016 (NSW)
• National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 (NSW)
• Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill 2018 (NSW) – earmarked to replace functions of the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 in relation to the management and protection of Aboriginal places.
• Guidelines for Developing Management Plans for declared Aboriginal Places,  NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (2012)

 

Council has restricted consultative capture of any local community input to some outsourced website based software outfit in Melbourne: Bang The Table’s ‘Have Your Say’:  https://www.bluemountainshaveyoursay.com.au/gully-plan    Yet Blue Mountains Council’s website now instructs:  “Consultation has concluded”. 

It’s July 2019 and Blue Mountains Council’s webpage on this process shows the following timeline update:

It would suggest that insufficient resources have been allocated or there are delays in the communications process,or insufficient scheduled time was provided for this project from the outset, or a combination of these.   

If local stakeholders missed out on finding out what is going on, should they just await Blue Mountains Council’s press release on its pre-decision making?

Chairperson of the Gully Traditional Owner Inc., Aunty Merle Williams, says: “The Gully is a sacred place to the Aboriginal community who came from the Gully. It was a place for everybody, regardless of who you were or where you came from.  It is important that The Gully is managed in a culturally appropriate way using both traditional and contemporary practices.”

The mayor, Mark Greenhill, said council had a strong commitment to working closely with traditional owner groups to care for country.   “The revised plan of management for The Gully will guide the future use and management of this significant site over the next 10-15 years.” 

Ok so regardless of who you were or where you came from, why are non-members of the Gundungurra Traditional Owners Inc. being excluded from consultation in Blue Mountains Council’s review process?

 

References:

 

[1]   Upper Kedumba River Valley Plans of Management Revised 2004, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Upper-Kedumba-River-Valley-Plans-of-Management-Revised-2004.pdf

 

[2]   The Gully Aboriginal Place Map 2004, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/The-Gully-Aboriginal-Place-Map-2004.pdf

 

[3]   Proposed Review of Plan of Management, Blue Mountains Council website – temporary page, October 2018, ^https://yoursay.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/gully-plan

 

[4]   Community Input to Proposed New Plan, by Blue Mountains Council (2018), ^https://www.bluemountainshaveyoursay.com.au/gully-plan

 

[5]   Draft Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Bill 2018, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Draft-Aboriginal-Cultural-Heritage-Bill-2018.pdf

 

[6]   Blue Mountains City Council Contact:  Environmental Planning Projects Officer, Mr Soren Mortensen,  Tel:  4780 5000.

 

[7]    ‘Have your say on The Gully – Aboriginal place in Katoomba‘, 20090114, in The Blue Mountains Gazette newspaper (no author), ^https://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/story/5807043/future-of-the-gully-aboriginal-place/

 

[8]   ‘The Gully’s Abuse and Neglect‘, article by The Habitat Advocate, 20110905, >https://www.habitatadvocate.com.au/?page_id=7326.

 

 

The Gully remains an anthroplogical microcosm of Australian unresolved reconciliation

 

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

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

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

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

Katoomba Falls

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

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

Soliloquy of a Scribbly Gum

Crimson Rosella in snow, a native to The Gully

(Platycercus elegans)

(Photo by Editor, 20121012, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

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It rarely snows in Katoomba in the Blue Mountains these days.  In the old days it used to snow every winter, but these days we are lucky to get a brief flurry in August that doesn’t even settle.

So this morning was exceptional.   The forecast today (Friday) was for a storm further south, but at 6am in Katoomba it started snowing.  And in the middle of October (spring)!

Today’s weather, 20121012

http://www.bluemountainsweather.com/

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Then it kept snowing and kept snowing ‘ till after 1pm.  A few big tree branches crashed under the weight of snow.  The streets and roads steadily became blanketed in snow, making them slippery and  dangerous to most vehicles.  The Great Western Highway remains closed. The trains are snowbound up at Mount Vic.  It’s like we’re in the Alps where snow there is normal, but here no-one was ready for it.  Snow has regrettably become a freak event in the Blue Mountains.

We must have received about half a foot of snow by lunchtime.  Everything became soft white in a black and white landscape.

So it became quite a special morning and well worth a walk around The Gully in the snow.

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The Gully in Snow

(Photo by Editor, 20121012, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

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(Click play, then click full screen icon at bottom right of video)

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Streets around The Gully in Snow

(Photo by Editor, 20121012, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

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Tyre tracks through the snow in Katoomba

(Photo by Editor, 20121012, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

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Illegal dumping in The Gully, Katoomba, Blue Mountains

Reported to local council and promptly removed by local council.

(Photo by Editor 20060702, image free in public domain, click to enlarge)

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Illegal dumping is not unique to the Blue Mountains, but it continues to be an ongoing problem in this populated area that is situated upstream of the internationally valued Blue Mountains World Heritage Area.

Whereas litter is generally individual items of waste products improperly disposed of in the environment, illegal dumping is generally of a larger scale and premeditated.   Both are illegal.

Both are selfish, lazy and disrespectful to society and the environment.   The larger problem of illegal dumping involves the deliberate or unauthorised dumping, tipping or burying of waste on land that is not licensed or fit to accept that waste.   People illegally dump bags of household rubbish, electronic equipment, furniture, mattresses, industrial wastes, construction and demolition materials, garden waste, packaging, tyres, old cars and soil.

It is bad enough that an increasingly populating society that is also increasingly consuming resources is also increasingly contributing to landfill for its waste.  Worse is when that waste is illegally dumped and far worse when it is dumped in places that harm native ecology.

Lawn Clippings dumped at remote Hargreaves Lookout Road,

west of Blackheath in protected bushland, Blue Mountains, New South Wales

(Photo by Editor 20080405, image free in public domain, click to enlarge)

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Illegal dumping is more than just unsightly waste in an inappropriate location.  It not only reduces property values and costs rate payers a substantial amount of money each year to clean up.   Illegal dumping is inherently unnatural which means when dumped in a natural environment, the composition of the waste will have an adverse impact upon the natural ecology – it degrades and spoils local ecology.  The waste does not have to be deemed ‘hazardous’ such as toxic chemicals, paints, solvents, fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides or asbestos for instance.

Lawn clippings and woodchips will cause a moist environment for bacteria and flies to breed and after rain the nutrients will flow and contaminate surrounding soils, vegetation and watercourses.  This can be lethal to vulnerable and fragile flora and fauna, especially in Australia which naturally has low nutrient soils.

Illegally dumped waste can poison the soil and kill vegetation.  The introduced nutrients such as acids will prevent the vegetation from regenerating and dependent wildlife from returning.   Illegal dumping leads to long-term contamination of land, waterways, natural springs and groundwater, particularly when the waste is from an industrial source or contaminated soil.

Subsoil and rubble (left) dumped in The Gully (Katoomba), alongside the old race track

(Photo by Editor 20070310, free in public domain, click to enlarge)

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Illegal dumping can be dangerous to people (broken glass, syringes, nappies and medical waste, and carcinogenic substances like asbestos) but also it can attract rodents, insects and other vermin.  It can provide an ideal breeding ground for mosquitoes and maggots.  It can block waterways and stormwater drains, increasing the potential for flooding and erosion, and it can be a potential fire hazard.

The most common cause of illegal dumping in the Blue Mountains is typically on the side of a road where a motorist has carted the waste by trailer.

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Perhaps it is time to outlaw trailers and to replace them with waste collection services only provided by local council. 

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After all, if there is no means available to cart waste except by hand, the volume of illegal dumping will be reduced and the ability of illegal dumping to be away from residential areas and in natural areas will also be reduced.

Of course trucks can cart larger quantities of waste, but fewer people have access to trucks.  This does not mean that greater regulation cannot be imposed on truck drivers.  Perhaps every truck load needs to be registered and inspected by local council authorities, or an effective penalty imposed – say $5000 or a custodial sentence.

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Whatever an effective mix of solutions, unless governments are serious about addressing the problem, illegal dumping shall continue unabated.   

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Lenient law enforcement or the absence thereof, contribute to illegal dumping behaviour – and be clear, we are dealing with a human behavioural issue here.

In 2001, hundreds of tonnes of sand and rubble from the Soldiers Pinch upgrade to the Great Western Highway (Mount Victoria) was dumped by the RTA in The Gully over the top of an Upland Swamp. Permission was given by the Blue Mountains City Council, but without any community consultation.

 Subsequent actions by the Council involved planting on top of the compressed rubble, instead of properly removing it.

(Photo by Editor 20060702, 5 years on from the 2001 dumping little had grown.

Image free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

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Shaping correct responsible behaviour requires a combination of a ‘carrot’ incentive and ‘stick’ deterrent approach.  If waste is collected from households like weekly garbage, then the incentive for illegal dumping is reduced.  Why go to the trouble of driving somewhere to dump when it can be collected from your residence?  Similarly, if the cost of collection is low, the incentive to utilise the collection service is stronger.

As the cost of landfill fees is rising due to reducing number of suitable tip sites, some people in order to avoid disposal fees at landfills will choose to illegally dump to save money.  the risk of getting caught is low and this is the core problem in trying to change this bad behaviour.

Over 20 tonnes of rubble dumped in The Gully by Sydney Water as part of its Sewerage Amplification Project in 2005

(Photo by Editor 20120624, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

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Penalties for illegal dumping vary around the country.  For instance, in Queensland under its Waste Reduction and Recycling Act 2011, there are a range of offences for litter and illegal dumping from $200 on the spot fine for littering through to $16,500 for illegal dumping of large domestic items such as fridges, garden refuse and construction material.

[Source: Townsville City Council, ^http://www.townsville.qld.gov.au/resident/environment/Pages/litter.aspx]

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But most offenders do not get caught because the scale of monitoring is unwieldy and practically ubiquitous.

In Victoria , a landfill levy on all households has helped to fund a dedicated Illegal Dumping Strike Force team as part of the Environment Protection Authority in that State.  It’s tasks are to support businesses to understand their legal requirements for managing waste and recyclable material, work with its council partners and other government agencies to share intelligence about dumping offences and hotspots, and to investigate and enforce against incidents of large-scale industrial waste dumping.

[Source: Victorian Government’s Environmental Protection Authority, ^http://www.epa.vic.gov.au/waste/prevent-illegal-dumping/default.asp]

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Household garbage illegally dumped in The Gully near the South Katoomba Rural Fire Brigade, July 2012

(Photo by Editor, 20120703, free in public domain, click image to enlarge)

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In the Hunter Valley of New South Wales, the Hunter and Central Coast Regional Environmental Management Strategy (HCCREMS) in its Illegal Dumping project is seeking to address illegal dumping in the region through a range of new initiatives.

• Designing and trialing a number of enforcement campaigns to gain further data on illegal dumping ‘hot spots’ and determine effective campaign styles
• Trialing different illegal dumping deterrence methods (barriers, cameras, gates, etc) to determine their effectiveness at stopping illegal dumping
• Collating illegal dumping data, take photographs and coordinate media and community awareness activities.
• Establishing an Illegal Dumping Regional Database using Microsoft Access database software to collate and analyse data collected by councils, from dumping sites.  All incidents are entered into the database, which is linked to GIS and is able to produce maps of the locations in each council area.
• Allowing Councils to use the intelligence generated from the database to determine appropriate and effective inspection patrol regimes and where access control measures can be installed.
• Encouraging all councils to record incidents of illegal dumping on the incident forms developed by the Hunter Regional Illegal Dumping Group and forward these into HCCREMS for entry into the database.
• Illegal Dumping Deterrence Project – trialling deterrence measures including:  motion-sensitive cameras, revegetation, fencing, signage and earth mounds.
• Illegal Dumping Education and Awareness campaign including facilitating media involvement

[Source:  Hunter and Central Coast Regional Environmental Management Strategy, ^http://www.hccrems.com.au/Programs/Environmental-Compliance/Sub-projects/Illegal-Dumping.aspx]

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Sample Record of Illegal Dumping reported to Blue Mountains Council by residents

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Jan 2008:   Dumped Garden Refuse opposite 16 Garden St, Katoomba

To The General Manager, BMCC

Emailed to council@bmcc.nsw.gov.au

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‘Sir,

I request for the removal of dumped garden refuse within a bushland adjacent Carlton Street, Katoomba, opposite 16 Garden Street (located at the corner of Garden St and Carlton St). The garden refuse contains weeds and is near a large rock.

Dumped building waste (opposite a recently built house at 20 Carlton St) and cut down trees are also present within the bushland.

Please see attached photographs.

Also, I recommend that Council arrange for its ranger to inform nearby local residents that it is illegal to dump garden refuse and building waste under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act and cut down trees under the Tree Preservation Order. Garden refuse smothers native vegetation, spreads weeds and increases bush fire danger.

As you will be aware, the cutting down of native trees for firewood reduces habitat and creates wood smoke pollution.’

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Apr 2007:   Opposite Megalong Lodge, 40 Acacia Street Katoomba

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To The General Manager, BMCC

Emailed to council@bmcc.nsw.gov.au

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‘Sir,

I request Council removes a very large amount of dumped garden refuse within escarpment bushland, located adjacent Cliff Drive and across the road from Megalong Lodge, 40 Acacia St, Katoomba.

The dumped refuse is believed to have come from Megalong Lodge, as it is made up of white driveway pebbles, pine needles, Agapanthus and Rhododendron cuttings found on this property. A bush trail in direct line to the property also contains the cuttings. Grass clippings have also been dumped.

Urgent removal of the garden refuse is recommended, since exotic grass is beginning to grow within the escarpment bushland. The dumping was discovered in April 2007. Please see attached photographs.

Also request the ranger to inform nearby local residents that it is illegal to dump garden refuse under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act.    Garden refuse is pollution and smothers native vegetation, spreads weeds and increases bush fire danger.‘

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Dec 2007:   Outside Katoomba Golf Club

To The General Manager, BMCC

Emailed to council@bmcc.nsw.gov.au

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‘Sir,

I request for the removal of dumped grass clippings within bushland at Katoomba Golf Course, opposite 165 Narrow Neck Road, Katoomba. Dumped clippings are located next to the golf course entrance turnstile. The front lawn of 161 Narrow Neck Road had just been mown at the time of discovery of the still green clippings.  Please see the attached photograph.

Also, I request a Council ranger to inform nearby local residents that it is illegal to dump grass cuttings under the Protection of the Environment Operations Act.   Grass cuttings smother native vegetation, spread weeds and increase bush fire danger.’

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There is a ‘baby boomer‘ political penchant to encourage more and more freight to travel by truck, which has dominated Australian Government transport planning for the past sixty years since World War II.

It is a short-term tactical stop-gap measure.  Compared with rail freight, road linehaul for large volumes, over long distances, in the long term is price uncompetitive, and Peak Oil driving up fuel costs will eventually prove road linehaul a strategic economic blunder.

Speeding B-doubles increasingly dominate the highway over the Blue Mountains

‘Woe betide anyone who gets in my way!‘

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain)

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Yet ‘road-centric’ freight policy dominates the infrastructure planning, simply because it is being driven by the self-centred vested interests of the trucking industry –  influenced (read ‘bought‘) by ongoing substantial monetary donations (read ‘bribes’)  to the electoral campaigns of alternating Labor and Liberal governments.  Visit ^http://democracy4sale.org/ and choose either:

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Money talks, hence the political penchant to favour road freight.  Whereas rail, entrenched as a government monopoly, has long denied any community say.  Rail has become the Cinderella to Road where only a small honourary volunteer lobby, the Australasian Railway Association (ARA) has not the funds to compete against the collective corporate might of trucking donors.   Read about the ARA:  ^http://www.ara.net.au/site/index.php

The Liberal-Labor Party’s Auslink National Transport Plan since 2004 professed  ‘a new strategic framework for the planning and funding of Australia’s roads and railways to meet long term economic and social needs.’    However, in reality the funding has all but gone into building bigger and more highways.

News is, we are about to enter the year 2012, so we should have advanced somewhat from post-war trucking thinking.

Yet in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, well over $1 billion is forecast to be spent to build a massive highway viaduct and tunnel; simply so that larger and faster trucks can cart freight, fuel and ore over the Blue Mountains and to bypass the village of Mount Victoria.  The fact that a rail line following a similar route exists and has long been used to cart copious quantities of coal over the Blue Mountains, is ignored by a truck-centric political mindset.   The planned Mount Victoria bypass is just one of the multiple ongoing highway widening sections being constructed by Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA) contractors over the Blue Mountains and ultimately extending from Penrith in Sydney’s outer metropolitan west to the New South Wales central-west regional town of Orange, 250km away.

Great Western Highway, Wentworth Falls, March 2010

This trucking section just $115,000,000  (pre-blowout estimate)

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain)

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The widening of the highway has caused the destruction of much native vegetation and has ruined the bushland amenity of the villages and towns of the Central Blue Mountains.  Construction has caused irreversible sediment contamination of many Blue Mountains waterways that drain from the highway ridgeline downstream into the Blue Mountains National Park and World Heritage Area.

Leura, January 2006

– collateral stormwater pollution of downstream creeks to serve the Trucking Expressway

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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Since 1996, the widening of the Great Western Highway over the Blue Mountains has cost over a billion dollars already.  Yet the highway runs parallel to an existing dual rail line, which for the most part runs right alongside one another.  One justification argued for the massive cost and widening of the highway is to relieve traffic congestion for motorists, but there is a low population base in the Blue Mountains as settlement is confined to the ridgeline over the Blue Mountains where the highway and rail run together.  Steep terrain either side prevent a large population expansion.

Katoomba, May 2009

– collateral vegetation damage to serve the Trucking Expressway

(Photo by Editor, free in public domain, click photo to enlarge)

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Before construction began, the only systemic traffic congestion on the highway was at weekends when tourists from Sydney ventured west in their cars.  Spending billions to encourage domestic regional tourism has not been the real justification.  The real justification has been and continues to be to encourage more truck freight along the Great Western Highway.

Yet the public is still waiting for a cost-benefit analysis, a calculation of any return on investment, an end-to-end journey analysis of the freight options, an holistic comparison to rail.
Instead, not only has there been a road-only freight focus, the trucks have got bigger.  Governments are now permitting and encouraging the use of 19 metre ‘B-doubles’ along the highway.  It is only a matter of time before 26 metre B-doubles turn up.  In Victoria they are permitting B-triples – basically road-trains!   Successive Labor and Liberal governments at both national and state level have maintained a truck-centric mindset since the 1980s when the NSW Greiner Government abandoned and close down much of the State’s rail infrastructure, including the closure of  rail depots at Valley Heights and Junee.

This baby boomer political penchant has been encouraged and lauded by baby boomer himself, Bob Debus, long-time Labor politician for the NSW seat of Blue Mountains then the Federal seat of Macquarie, both covering the Blue Mountains region.  Bob Debus has since retired, yet the Labor boomer mindset perpetuates with its truck-centric fervour.

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“It is with dismay that I watch the Mountains stand by as the RTA fulfills Bob Debus’ promise of an “upgraded” highway (read Trucking Expressway) – by his own admission – built to carry 26m B-double trucks.  The RTA admits that when the western container hubs are finished they will generate 4000 extra B-double movements per day.  Parked end to end they would stretch 102 km – every day!  Goondiwindi, Toowoomba and many other towns don’t allow them but we will see them roaring through every Mountains town – past schools, shops and homes.”

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~ Dennis Plink, Hartley Vale (letter ‘B-double agenda‘ in Blue Mountains Gazette, 20090304, p.8.

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The widening of the highway into a trucking expressway is wrecking the Blue Mountains.  And certainly, those trucks have increased – in number, in size and length and in speed.  These bigger, faster trucks are not policed.  They are turning the Great Western Highway into a dangerous death zone.

Speeding B-Double truck overturns on Lapstone Hill

–  at an already widened section of the Trucking Expressway

Zoom, zoom, zoom!

(Photo by Top Notch Video).

 

Last July, on the highway at Lawson near Queens Road, truck driven by a 66-year-old Murrangaroo man collided head-on with an eastbound car trapped a female passenger, followed by a separate collision between a truck and a car near Boland Ave at Springwood.  On Friday, 29th July 2011 on Lapstone Hill the driver of a semi-trailer failed to negotiate a left-hand bend while travelling east and crashed into the concrete median barrier.  The impact caused the truck’s trailer — containing a full load of bark — to tip over the barrier and slide a short distance into the path of a westbound Mitsubishi Lancer, driven by a 30-year-old Hazelbrook woman, who remained trapped before being rushed to Westmead Hospital.  Traffic chaos ensued as all westbound lanes were closed for more than eight hours and one eastbound lane also shut for the clean-up operation. Lapstone Hill is one of the widened sections of the highway.

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[Source:  ‘Blue Mountains highway mayhem’, by Shane Desiatnik, Blue Mountains Gazette, 20110803, ^http://www.bluemountainsgazette.com.au/news/local/news/general/blue-mountains-highway-mayhem/2246694.aspx?storypage=0]

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Increasingly we are reading in local newspapers of road trauma involving trucks.   Across Australia, during the 12 months to the end of March 2009, 248 people died from 229 crashes involving heavy trucks or buses. These included:

• 138 deaths from 124 crashes involving articulated trucks (semi-trailers, B-doubles, B-triples)
• 90 deaths from 86 crashes involving heavy rigid trucks
• 22 deaths from 21 crashes involving buses.

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[Source: ‘Fatal Heavy Vehicle Crashes Australia: Quarterly Bulletin, January-March 2009’, Summary, ^http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roads/safety/publications/2009/fhvca_q12009.asp]

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Here are just some of the tragic road trauma incidents involving trucks across Australia over the past year:

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‘Truck burns at Yelgun’ … two days ago!

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Flames engulf a postal truck at Yelgun on the NSW north coast on December 18, 2011. The driver stopped the truck after noticing smoke pouring from the engine bay. He collected his belongings and departed the vehicle before the flames took hold.

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[Source: ‘Truck burns at Yelgun”, by Kalindi Starick, ABC, 20111220, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-19/flames-engulf-a-postal-truck-at-yelgun-on-the-nsw-north-coast/3737752]

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‘Teenage driver killed in truck collision’…two days ago

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One woman was killed and five people were injured in two accidents involving B-double trucks.

1. Engineers were called to the scene of a dramatic accident on the Gateway Motorway at Boondall in Brisbane about midday yesterday, when a B-double truckexploded after it and a car collided.
2. On the Bruce Highway near Rockhampton, a 19-year-old woman died and four people were injured when a car and a B-double truck collided. Police said the station wagon tried to turn into the southbound lanes of theBruce Highway at Marmor just before 8pm on Friday when the car and truck, whichwas travelling in the northbound lane, collided.  The 19-year-old driver was killed, while her three female passengers, two aged19 and one aged 18, were taken to Rockhampton hospital. The three are in a stable condition. The 65-year-old driver of the B-double was taken to hospital for precautionary treatment and has been released.

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[Source: ‘Teenage driver killed in truck collision’, by Date: December 18 2011, Ellen Lutton, 20111218, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.smh.com.au/queensland/teenage-driver-killed-in-truck-collision-20111217-1p0ax.html?skin=text-only]

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‘Truck crash closes Melbourne freeway’

Melbourne’s Monash Freeway is closed in both directions after a semi-trailer crashed into a bridge pylon in the suburb of Mulgrave in the city’s south-east.

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[Source: ‘Truck crash closes Melbourne freeway’, ABC, 20111213, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-12-13/truck-crash-closes-melbourne-freeway/3727918]

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‘Truckie quizzed over fatal crash’

 

Two people have died in a crash on the Pacific Highway near Yamba on the NewSouth Wales north coast.

A 62-year-old man and a 51-year-old woman from the Leeton area died when two cars collided about 11:00am (AEDT) today.  A woman and three children who were in the other car have been taken to the Coffs Harbour Hospital. Police say a truck driver who was involved in the accident but failed to stop, was later pulled over at Ballina.  Police are interviewing him. Rebecca Walsh, from the Traffic Management Centre, says the Pacific Highway is closed in both directions and vehicles are being diverted along the Summerland Way at Grafton.

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[Source: ‘Truckie quizzed over fatal crash’, ABC, 20111111, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-11/truckie-quizzed-over-fatal-crash/3660874]

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‘Chemical alert after truck rolls in Blue Mountains’

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Fire crews are battling to contain a major chemical spill on the Great Western Highway at Katoomba in the Blue Mountains, after a truck overturned and 20,000 litres of a bright green industrial chemical poured out.

Protective bunds have been built around the spill site to stop the chemical, which is possibly a type of hydraulic fluid, reaching the iconic Leura cascades.  The chemical is described as biodegradable, but it can be a toxic irritant to skins and eyes if touched.

Six fire crews were at the site at 5pm, plus a hazardous materials unit from St Marys, a spokesman for Fire and Rescue NSW said.National Parks rangers, Blue Mountains council staff and fire crews are monitoring the extent of the spilled fluid, some of which entered the drainage system. Council staff have poured gravel around the edge of the spill area to try and contain it. The truck rolled over at about 2pm, and the driver’s condition is unknown, although he or she was understood to not have been trapped in the vehicle.

.[Source: ‘Chemical alert after truck rolls in Blue Mountains’, by Ben Cubby, Environment Editor, 20111026, Sydney Morning Herald, ^http://www.theleader.com.au/news/national/national/environment/chemical-alert-after-truck-rolls-in-blue-mountains/2337200.aspx]

 

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Editor:  Subsequent reports by a Katoomba resident reported observing the green hydraulic fluid flow in quantities down Govetts Creek.  The contaminant would probably have ended up in the World Heritage Area of the creek within the Grose Valley, but would the RTA, Blue Mountains Council or the National Parks Service care? 

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‘Truck overturns at Tabbimoble’  (Maclean)

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A woman suffered minor injuries when the truck she was driving overturned on the Pacific Highway at Tabbimoble yesterday morning.

The B-double truck carrying general freight was heading north on the Pacific Highway and was about 2km south of the New Italy complex and 25km north of Maclean when it rolled shortly before 5am.  The 46-year-old woman who was at the wheel of the Volvo semi-trailer complained of back pains and was taken by ambulance to Lismore Base Hospital. The highway was partially blocked for four hours while emergency service cleared away the debris.  The accident occurred on what has become a notoriously black stretch of road where several fatalities have occurred in recent years.
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[Source: ‘Truck overturns at Tabbimoble’, Northern Star, 20110609, ^http://www.northernstar.com.au/story/2011/06/09/truck-overturns-tabbimoble/]

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‘Cyclists mowed down by truck’

M4 Motorway (aka Trucking Expressway) on approach to the Blue Mountains

Photo: Adam Hollingworth

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One man has died after a truck veered into a group of cyclists on the M4 motorway.

Fatigue may have caused a truck driver to veer into the breakdown lane and mow down a group of cyclists, killing one, on the M4 in Sydney’s west.  Police said a group of four cyclists were riding in the breakdown lane of the M4 near the Northern Road overpass at South Penrith when they were struck by a B-double truck about 7.40am today. A male cyclist died and the three others sustained serious injuries. The injured were taken to Nepean Hospital.

A WorkCover spokesman said a preliminary investigation was under way to ascertain whether driver fatigue caused the accident.  Police said the male truck driver was taken to hospital for mandatory blood and urine tests.  Police are investigating the cause of the crash.

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[Source: ‘Cyclists mowed down by truck’, Sydney Morning Herald sourcing AAP , 20100410, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/cyclists-mowed-down-by-truck-20100410-rz7v.html]

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‘Overtaking gamble cost highway driver his life, police believe’

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One person has died after a truck carrying chemicals exploded after colliding with a car on the NSW north coast this morning.

Police believe a car driver’s early morning gamble in trying to pass a B-double truck on a no-overtaking stretch of the Pacific Highway cost him his life. The sedan was travelling southbound at Warrell Creek just before 4am when it appeared to pull out into the oncoming lane to overtake the truck. It then crashed head-on into a second, northbound, B-double carrying chemicals, Senior Constable Brian Carney of the Mid North Coast Crash Investigation Units aid.

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[Source: ‘Overtaking gamble cost highway driver his life, police believe’, by Glenda Kwek, 20110405, ^http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/overtaking-gamble-cost-highway-driver-his-life-police-believe-20110405-1cz01.html]

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‘Exploded fuel tanker closes Pacific Highway’

 

The Pacific Highway on the New South Wales north coast will be closed until New Year’s Day while crews clear a fuel tanker that exploded and killed the driver.

The tanker hauling 40,000 litres of fuel overturned and exploded on what is regarded by truckies as a notorious stretch of the highway, near Tintenbar, 10 km north of Ballina.

Authorities have set up a one-kilometre exclusion zone around the burning tankerand more than 100 firefighters equipped with breathing apparatus were sent to the scene.The ambulance service says the truck driver was killed in the blast, while two people have been freed from a nearby car after being trapped when powerlines came down on their vehicle.  The second trailer of the B-double was thrown into a paddock where it leaked fuel into a nearby wetland, and police still cannot get to the cabin of the burnt truck where the driver’s body remains inside.

Another tanker driver, Gary, says the driver is one of their own but they do not know who.”It is sad to be holed up on the side of the road like this. And it’s sad for a driver that’s not going to go home to his family,” he said.

The truck was laden with diesel and unleaded fuel, which has now been mostly contained.  Police say they will not be able to assess the damaged road until the scorched truck is moved, but they expect the Pacific Highway to be closed for the rest of today.  Six other trucks are banked up behind the accident site unable to turn around.

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[Source: ‘Exploded fuel tanker closes Pacific Highway’, ABC, 20101231, ^http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/12/31/3104386.htm?site=goldcoast]

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‘Truck lobby donations seem more important than people’s lives!‘

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~ Dennis Plink, loc. cit.

Native Angophora 300 years old.

The RTA’s Environment Manager says it’s in the way – Chip it!

– collateral damage for the Trucking Expressway

…note railway line on left  

>:/

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