Page 3352 - Week 11 - Thursday, 22 September 1994
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. Urban and rural despoliation of native species and their habitats through weed invasion, overgrazing and inappropriate developments.
"The Report should have set goals for environmental sustainability in the ACT and dictated to Government a comprehensive monitoring process to assess our progress towards these goals", said Mr Darlington.
"Instead the Minister has released an incomplete, self-congratulatory document that shows up the Minister's lack of competency in administration and coordination".
That is the Conservation Council's opinion, and I suppose that the report could go further; but, in fairness to the Minister, it is a start.
There are a number of issues which I think do need looking at. Certainly, coordination between government departments is always a problem. That is certainly a problem we face in the ACT. In an area like the environment, that certainly is of key concern. Perhaps because of a lack of coordination in those areas we have a number of very real problems which have been alluded to on occasions in recent times. Last year I noticed a fair amount of publicity given to when there was a sewage overflow from the Lower Molonglo treatment works. Some of the effluent and some of the pollutants that have gone into our river systems and the Murray-Darling river system as a result of that have certainly had some very big effects on the environment.
The ACT, as a supposedly responsible Territory, a Territory that is very concerned about protecting not only its environment but the environment of the region as a whole, really does need to keep a very sharp eye on that; to monitor that situation and to take whatever steps are necessary to rectify it. A number of experts I have spoken to have indicated that overflows from the sewerage works, and other pollutants from construction sites all along the Murrumbidgee - the Murrumbidgee runs within close proximity of Canberra's suburbs - and especially from such things as the Belconnen tip, cause a lot of damage to the environment. Indeed, over a period of years, people who are very knowledgeable in the area have indicated to me that certain types of wildlife, especially fish, have died in the Murrumbidgee River and that, they say, is directly attributable to overspills and pollutants from our tips and from the sewerage works.
It is interesting to talk to some experts about the problems at the Belconnen tip which I think do need to be addressed. Mrs Grassby, I think, was at a meeting I attended where Bryan Pratt, who is very knowledgeable in these areas, addressed the Belconnen Community Council and went through a number of areas where there are real problems arising from that tip. He has indicated that the life use of that tip expires in the year 2000, and steps need to be taken now to work out what to do. Chemicals are dumped at that tip and there are a number of ponds in the tip leading down towards the Murrumbidgee. Three ponds lead down through what is basically a creek system. There have been overflows from that and there is real concern as to whether the methods being used there are effective in terms of stopping pollutants getting into the river system. There are drainage problems associated with the tip as well.
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