I truly hope the meeting on the 25th ( Lakes Bowling club) over the lake is not another talk fest.Without the tough medicine of a better water budget , any scheme to revive and improve the lake is doomed to failure , The only water that we will ever get is the water we get now - so we just have to use it a whole lot better - and that means two lakes - One more permanent than the other,
Think
The only way something as complex as this lake system is to change is if the State Authorities study it properly .We have had a whole century of wishing and hoping , thinking and praying but most of it talking around the edges - the same old same old problems of shallow and inadequate water supply. (both for aquatic life and aqua loving life ) -
--So we haven't been willing to grab the water bull by the horns .We have had the courage , not that many years ago, to raise the water level by raising the weir down the Meredith Park end by over a metre.
--Have we the courage to put the weir where it would work,, or even more importantly talk about weir specifics at Thursday nights meeting?
Like some notorious political movements , it seems to me our leaders are afraid of upsetting somebody - esp those who might give in to a bit of half worked through worry and self maintained ignorance. Sure a cuaseway will change the view but not enough way out there to stop the lake's exapnse being obvious ,Infact everyone who uses it will surely say " Must stop here sometime"
Yet we have this consensus breeds sense nonsense . The only stakeholders who get to influence these dumb processes are the big stakeholders . Is this really the way to move forward ?
-- "We'll canvass all opinions and get back to you " is not enough if most of us IMO just want someone to study and make a studied recommendation on the real possibilities - its called making an informed decision " . In 100 years no one has got back to us except a few with hard edged decisions like ones sought for by a more clear thinking Council in 1942.
Sure there are downsides and I am certainly not ignoring them( see previous posts ) What this fear and giving into factions first up does is produce, not solutions, but ineffective sidelines and tokens ; attempts to cross things off the list without examining them properly . Another $50000 on talk fests from Sarah Henderson wasted . (I hoped that wouldn't happen after the meeting and said so in a previous edit )
Instead of properly researching and facing up to the tough tests of the biological and engineering truths we end up half way doing nothing - cause its easier . There is, quite clearly, by treating Nature as family, a strong possibility of worthwhile change ( a eutrophic lake is by definition a dying lake
--We can design something that will keep more birds and fish than we do now and with the same 200 -300 million .How many birds and fish have been in there in last 10 years ?
--We can be expected to achieve all that is there now ( without always having algae fish and life kills some new and bigger resilience targets , not just the inevitable eutrophic death and dying,that we will get for the next thousand years;
--We can have more --at least 2 new ecosystems that have perennial life ,
--We can still have the old type of eutrophic lake-- up north more ?
--We can have trucks crossing the lake without them looking too big from key vantage points ( see earlier posts )
My suggestion;
Vote for a State government sponsored proper scientific review of the possibilities - which should include ways to raise and keep the water level higher .Will such a motion be put at the meeting? I have another appointment that day , so I wish you well
While the AURECONS report is completely inadequate as a study of all the issues, at least they made some estimates of the costs.( up to 300 million)
Interestingly a causeway really close to north shore would be a new type of proposal of little interest for sailors but would be easier to manage for water quality and levels . I think far too close for everyone's general comfort. But that's all to be discussed once the State shows a causeway is a positive possibility.
We haven't got even a way towards " how far out would be best for the causeway " YET. Clearly it can't be more than half way out as an effective long term water budget won't spread that far .
Whatever the change , How much different is to putting in a weir , or shifting the existing one at Meredith Park ?
Here the link to the report by Aurecon’s
four bypass recommendations and the estimated costs for each route.
http://www.colacherald.com.au/2013/03/381m-price-tag-for-lake-bypass-option/
