In the beginning there was a river!

Geoff Smedley

A century is a mere flicker of an eye in the lifespan of our lost waterways, the forlorn remains in 2009 bear witness to the shameful neglect that has been imposed on Launceston’s most visible icon in recent times, while unfortunatly the constant abuse is still continuing today and still within the bounds of that tiny flicker.

In the beginning there was a river,the centrepiece of Launceston that was respected as the major artery in the early development of Tasmania, particularly Launceston where the river today displays an image that bears little resemblance to the bustling river highway of 100 years ago.

A century is a mere flicker of an eye in the lifespan of our lost waterways, the forlorn remains in 2009 bear witness to the shameful neglect that has been imposed on Launceston’s most visible icon in recent times, while unfortunatly the constant abuse is still continuing today and still within the bounds of that tiny flicker.

After reading the recently released GHD report on the beleagured waterways of Launceston for 2008, a basic study only covering material already known rather than prospecting new avenues of thinking, and with this being the very latest in a myriad of papers already published on the subject it does little to boost confidence. The Tamar’s strangulation by silt erosion from the ever widening and vandalised catchment areas, this rapidly growing burden of erosion materials feeding their array of poisons to the settling ponds in the heart of Launceston and while backed up by the city’s sewer outfalls dating back to the 19th century, including every type of alien st r ucture is being placed in the survival line of the Tamar estuary, its future is now seriously bleak indeed.

It would be hard to qualify Launceston as Tasmania’s second largest city. It could not be made more obvious in the tourist eye that Launceston is rather a forgotten city and government and government bodies must be brought to task and villified in the strongest terms.

This latest GHD report(Tamar Siltation Project) called for by the Launceston City Council has been handed very limited guidelines to work in producing a paper the cost of which must simply outweigh its usfulness. At this late stage desperate measures are needed, but of course if it is only to be filed away with all the others and kept secret, I suppose it doesn’t matter. The paper does deal with the wasteful dredging,but of course today’s outcome was known 5 years ago before the “toy” dredge first began the expensive experiment. Also mentioned is the millions of dollars that have been placed on the Tamar and simply disappeared in the mud and filth, never to be seen or heard of again, and while rightly some of the severest criticisms ever laid have landed at our council’s door, it is well proven that nothing can prompt any feasible response from that impossible site.

It seems the lack of technical imput on the scale required has never reached the the co n fined bound a ries of the Tamar. Just to clean up the current mess appears to be well outside Tasmania’s capabilities and worsening by the month. Bandages and bandaids are all in vogue today, whereas something akin to a full heart transplant is required to save what has become one of Tasmania’s greatest smelly blights while inviting serious dangers directly in the heart of Launceston.

While we are content to suffer early 20th century sewage infrastructure, some even qualified in the 19th century and the outfall is retained within the confines of the narrow city boundries. It would be questionable not to believe that serious issues are being ignored, especially with “silt” rapidly taking the place of natural water, and that human health is under an ever increasing threat, especially with the fact that independent water sampling is contradictary to the fob-off numbers fed to the public by council sources.

The fact is now well proven that the fate of Launceston’s waterways lies well out of range of abilities the LCCT can boast, so it is up to our fragmented State Government to lift its sights above self preservation and expand its scope to encompass the critical issues that matter to the whole state.

In the meantime the best we can expect is bottom of bucket mentality with old punch lines like:- “the river is simply returning to its natural state” if this was only so, then can we look forward to a sparkling blue river at any time now!! Fairytales rarely come true and while such story tellers still exist, so does the river’s biggest humbug.

Geoff Smedley
Launceston