Glenburn Hall and Progress Association member Bev McArthur shares her dismay at the loss of a large tree at the hall with anti-pipeline advocate Mike Dalmau and Glenburn landowners Campbell and Deb McLeish.By Kath Gannaway
THE removal of a large tree at the Glenburn Hall has some Glenburn Hall and Progress Association members up in arms.
As the controversial North-South Pipeline rolls out along the Melba Highway, residents say the fall-out is being felt by affected landowners and residents who are witnessing the changing landscape.
Progress association spokesperson Bev McArthur said she and other association members believed the cypress pine was planted at about the time the hall was built and had special significance to the area.
“When it was first mooted that the pipe was going through it was said they could go on either side as long as that tree stayed,” Mrs McArthur said.
She said the environment around the hall had been completely destroyed.
“We are in mourning for the tree and its removal was just not necessary,” she said.
Melbourne Water disputes that the tree was going to escape the axe, saying it was a pine and that in discussions with the appointed association representative it was made clear the tree would go.
Melbourne Water’s Andrew McGuinness said after discussions with the representative, they managed to save two pine trees.
McEwen MP Fran Bailey who visited Glenburn last week with Senator Fiona Nash as part of her tour of the Murray-Darling region said she was shocked to see the devastation in Glenburn.
She said the removal of trees which it had been stated were significant to that community raised the question of what would happen in the Kinglake National Park.
“At the moment we still don’t know whether they are going to tunnel, but even if they do they are going to have to knock down a lot of trees, or cut a swathe through the forest.”
Residents of Glenburn who spoke with the Mail said their experience did not augur well for the next farming community on the pipeline route – Dixons Creek.
Mr McGuinness said compensation would be paid to landowners whose properties were affected by the pipeline.
