Recreation? No dam way
I was surprised to read that people want to use Grahamstown Dam for recreation [Examiner, March 8].
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This is our water supply and needs to be kept separate from recreational activities. What is the matter with using the Hunter River of the quiet bays of Lemon Tree Passage and Taylors Beach?
People pollute, no amount of policing is going to prevent that. I would rather Hunter Water reduce water usage costs so that everyone can benefit and water their dried-out gardens rather than we pay for an increase in rates whether through council rates or water rates.
This is a minority who will benefit, the majority want clean water and less cost.
Anne Pozzi, Anna Bay
Council must come clean
I would like to know firstly, who in council was responsible for the debacle at the intersection of Salamander Way and Town Center Circuit?
Secondly, what has this stuff up cost the ratepayers of Port Stephens?
Thirdly, has the person responsible been disciplined? (Maybe they've been "counselled"?)
I, for one, am sick of seeing ratepayers having to clean up the mess made by bureaucrats (and staff) of not only local government but also in state and federal governments. The public is entitled to know who allowed things like the intersection fiasco happen. When was the last time we heard of anyone losing their job?
Daryl Ryan, One Mile
Inaction a myna problem
I strongly agree with Annamaree Reisch's opinion [Examiner, Letters, February 15], that Port Stephens Council is not doing enough to address the growing Indian myna problem.
While reporting that mynas are one of the three major pests it is facing, council apparently does no trapping or removal of myna nests itself, but also seems loathe to assist community members prepared, at their own cost, to do what they can.
The Port Stephens Indian Myna Action Group wrote to the council on February 8, setting out its current and planned activities, and seeking whatever support the council could provide, whether financial, such as subsidies for the cost of traps or non-financial, such as information and advice, or simply moral support. No response, or even acknowledgment, has been received. And if the draft Hunter region pest control plan for the next five years released on March 10 is put in place, the council will consider it has a licence to continue to do next to nothing about the myna problem.
David Lever, Tanilba Bay
Money better spent
The State government and Port Stephens Council, are investigating whether the ‘Coastal Lands Protection Scheme’ can be used to bring the Mambo wetlands site back to public ownership after it was sold ‘by mistake’ in 2016.
This Scheme is used to bring significant coastal lands into public ownership following voluntary agreement and negotiation between the owner and the government. In the case of the Mambo land the parties in the negotiations will be the owner, who doesn’t particularly want to sell the land and the Liberal/National government that is desperate to buy the land back to minimise any further political damage following its ‘mistake’.
When a sale is negotiated between an unmotivated vendor and a desperate purchaser the price paid is usually well above market value. It is highly likely that the Mambo land, which was sold for $250,000, will have to be bought back, by the government, for a price far in excess of that amount. Any buyback price above $250,000 will be money that could otherwise have been spent on schools, roads and hospitals, if it were not for the Liberal government’s ‘mistake’.