The team at Clean4Shore has continued to help clean up the Peninsula following weeks of wet weather, collecting nearly four tonnes of debris off the coast off Patonga.
The local environmental organisation was joined by the Central Coast Outrigger Club on the Hawkesbury River on March 20, cleaning the foreshores in preparation for their upcoming NSW titles at Patonga.
Owner of Clean4Shore, Graham Johnston, said teams found polystyrene dominant along the Patonga foreshore, and expect to find “much more” as they move upstream.
“A local group had stockpiled much of the litter on Flint & Steel, which was bagged, and then more was found including car tyres, large drums, pallets and buckets,” Johnston said.
“Flood debris on the closer points was also gathered including a large water tank, emptied and flipped across the rocks and into the barge.
Johnson said Local fisherman, ‘Carl’ supplied a second smaller barge and used his knowledge of local conditions to assist navigate.
“Carl returned his group back to Patonga and the Clean4shore barge headed across the river into the mouth of Cowan Creek with two small beaches checked.
“Our team enjoyed the magnificent beauty of the Hawkesbury River on a busy Sunday afternoon.”
Johnson said flood debris was also removed from the main beach at the Broken Bay Sport and Recreation Centre on March 16 by an enthusiastic group of young boys from the North Gosford Learning Centre and staff.
A 1,000 litre slimline tank was found floating approximately 200 metres off the beach.
“The beach itself was an absolute mess with aluminium cladding, masses of polystyrene, car tyres, damaged water tanks, drums, buckets, hard plastic and foam bedding material,” Johnston said.
“The task was enormous, with the team loading 30 very full bags onto the barge, then the larger items to quickly have a very full load, which departed for the trip back to Patonga.”
Maisy Rae
This a great and rewarding thing to do but do you realise just how much worse the floods are going to get in the future, because in the headwaters of the Hawkesbury/Nepean and Georges Rivers the government is planning to turn approximately 220,000 hectares much of which will be turned from farm and bushland into hard surfaces where the water will run off into rivers, bringing with it mud from building sites, litter, rubbish, and chemicals along with sewerage plants that overtop from their holding ponds. The Greater Macarthur Growth Plan, Cumberland Plain Conservation Plan nearly all run into the Nepean River and yet no one appears to understand the magnitude of the disaster to both the human and native animal populations including koalas that the government is planning.