Geoff Smedley
IT IS rather sickening to have witnessed the rapid decline of the rivers in Launceston just in the past decade.
In 1998 I became so disgusted with the seemingly obvious lack of care for the Tamar Basin I felt personal guilt for my generation to allow such a visible embarrasement to be associated with my town. At that time even third world countries were recognising the serious water problems facing the world today making highly polluted rivers into storage features for hard times now fast approaching

This prompted a couple of years of familiarization with the then glaring issues these waterways were suffering, then deviseing what was to be, a suggested plan to counteract many of the man-made issues that was crippling the rivers survival in its then devastating struggle for survival.

The Lake Batman plan was eventually brought to life and put to paper before being presented and initially shown and discussed with a selection of approachable polititions I believed may be constructively critical of the proposal and attempt to follow it further perhaps, and in so doing broaden the vision away from so many of the damaging and failed bandaid efforts of the past.

Surprisingly, the suggested plan did meet with much encouraging praise at the start, but it was a feeling of interference that confused and upset others, consequently during the intervening decade Launceston’s rivers are now right on the tipping point of survival with not even the hint of any plan or action in place for the future, simply a void of vacant stares.

This latest Legislative Council select committee hearing is the perfect example putting forward “feelgood”studies that have no end and certainly no meaning. The last time this group attempted a political kick along at the expense of the Tamar river they tripped up by not only by demeaning the author of perhaps the most credible study of all the sixty plus other enquiries carried out within the past fifty years, but this time these Legislative lads commissioned this study themselves. The now famous “Jones Report” was released to its instigators in March 2006, but for reasons unknown this full report was never fully disclosed while never allowed to see the light of day and so the intriguing secret “Jones” report was promptly discarded.

One must question these cynical actions and expose them for what they are, very much an expensive whitewash while venturing into the realm of expensive barnstorming politics. The current agenda confronting the contestants today apparently reverts back some 15 years with the questioning of where the enormous buildup of silt and slime originates from, it really is primary school stuff, particularly at this critical stage of these survival time. Other political hopefuls are picking up on some of the older quick-fix solutions for the Tamar, calling for a simple dredge-out and piling of the shoreline as the way ahead, all this off the cuff rhetoric is simply another nail in the Tamar’s coffin, without any really informed imagination to confront this problem in the proper way, then the upper Tamar is already lost.

A recent example of quick fix ideas was the debacle of the North Esk near the Tamar estuary where a quick fix bandaid close piling experiment costing $3.5 Million (plus) fell over and the “mute” button was immediatly pressed. The massive cost of this close piling of riverbank on the Tamar wasted a staggering $1million for each 100 metres and no questions are to be asked. Am I the only one that is simply staggered with this behaviour? I hope not!

It seems we have let the butcher, the baker and the candle stick maker destroy Launceston’s last natural feature it could boast, and advocating for serious advise over this past decade has sadly fallen on deaf ears while the cost in the past ten years alone runs into many many millions of dollars while the rivers of Launceston have reached all time low, becoming a serious threat to health in their dying stages that sadly we are graphically witnessing today.

Geoff Smedley,
Lostcestone