Saturday, March 20, 2010

Should we leave the lake alone?


From time to time we hear the idea that we should not even consider changing Lake Colac. Along the lines for eg " It's Natural and we should not interfere with Nature "
The problem with that idea, is that it is just an ideal . Lake Colac is not natural and hasn't been for nearly 100 years .
If it was returned to "natural" it would be a swamp -the biggest swamp in Victoria. If it was returned to "natural" it would dry out much more often and grow weeds and little insects much more commonly than it has . Instead of us treasuring "the biggest freshwater lake in Victoria" we would have the biggest swamp in the country. And what would we be "Swamp Country Colac" or "bogan bog dwellers " - No thanks

Lets be more realistic and deal with reality by thinking more about the future ! let's not kid oursleves, or allow ourselves to be kidded here, anymore .

With a barrage and a bank up the top end to keep the water level high, talk of "natural" is just kidding ourselves. the end works nearly doubles "the natural depth".
The strange thing is that if we divided the lake into two we could have the best of both worlds - a more natural lake up north and a more permanent higher water quality lake to the south (postings March 2008 )
Cnr Chris smith tells me he thinks it won't happen .If none of our so called reps are prepared to EVEN talk to the public about options for the future , It won't happen because of them and their talk of a believable "strategy approach "is paper thin .We are not asking them to approve the options but study them !!!  It oh so easy to do the simple things !
What I can't understand is why none of our councillors, or Mr Mulder are prepared to get Vicroads to say whether a causeway is feasible or not ( they would probably do it for nothing) .
Maybe they are not hiding their heads in the sand, but in the mud and stuck in it?
Are we too afraid of change, or doesn't anyone want to explore what's possible anymore?. We don't have to do it - we just have to think about it .

Maybe they are worried about what Spring street would say or maybe they'd just rather spend another lot of our money on another strategy plan or big meeting that talks around the options rather than to the options .