City tastes water row

By Kath Gannaway
Pipeline opposition groups are to protest in Melbourne to put city water unsers under pressure.
They want to make Melbourne residents of what they say will be the environment damage caused by theNorth-South Pipeline.
Friends of the Earth (FOTE) will hold a meeting at their headquarters in Collingwood on Wednesday.
They want to take the fight to the suburban residents the State Government says will benefit from the water which will flow through the pipeline. It will run from the Goulburn River to Sugarloaf Reservoir and on to metropolitan Melbourne.
Melbourne residents joined anti-pipeline activists from Dixons Creek, Toolangi, Goulburn and Yea on Sunday to look over the latest stage of the pipeline’s construction pathway at Toolangi.
Members of the Greens Party, Healesville Environment Watch Inc (HEWI) and Yarra Ranges councillors Jeanette McRae and Samantha Dunn were among a group of about 40 people who visited the Northern Portal (where extensive removal of bushland took place two weeks ago) and the Glenburn site where the pipeline is being laid through farmland along the Melba Highway.
FOTE Campaigns Co-ordinator Cam Walker said water stress was a growing concern for the general population and it was time Melbourne people were informed of what was happening in the country.
He said the meeting on Wednesday would form a new group whose job it would be to concentrate on the southern end of the pipeline.
“It is clear the State Government has decided it can wear the electoral damage on this side of the Divide (The Great Dividing Range),” he said. “The public outrage up here is both obvious and profound.
“We have to make this a Melbourne issue. The people in the north are feeling the pain and people in Melbourne by and large are not aware of it,” he said.
HEWI president and Toolangi resident Steve Meacher said the damage to the Toolangi Forest would be extensive going through several different forest types, including two areas which are designated “Special Protection Zones”.
“In normal circumstances logging would not be allowed in these protection zones because of their particular environmental values,” he said.
“The Southern Portal is so close to the Yea River if it was a logging site they would not be allowed to log so close to the river,” he added.
Looking at the swathe of open-cut between the Melba Highway and the mountain Mr Meacher said it was indicative of what people could expect to see all the way to Dixons Creek.
“This zoning is supposed to be 50 metres back from the Melba Highway, but because of the steep terrain they have said they will take down any vegetation which is a risk to the workers. That’s why the trees outside the zone have been removed.”
The narrow buffer zone was little more, he said, than camouflage aimed at stopping motorists from seeing the extent of the impact on the bush.
“The reason this site has to be so extensive is because of other things such as storage areas, water tanks and staff amenities.
“This will be quite an extensive work site as things progress and I understand it will take a year or so to carry out the work,” he said.
Vegetation on the other side of the highway would also need to be removed to cater for road widening to allow for vehicle turn-ins.
Both Cr Jeanette McRae and Cr Sally Abbott-Smith from Murrindindi Shire spoke of the economic and social impact the pipeline project was having on their communities.
Cr McRae said the Shire of Yarra Ranges did not support the pipeline project, or the environmental destruction it had brought with it.
“The destruction of the natural environment is obvious here and the threat to our Yea River is also obvious,” Cr Abbott-Smith added.
“But what is so very upsetting is that the community is being totally ignored.
“The farming community up here has been brought to its knees on this. We’re already suffering drought, already suffering recession and this has been pushed down our throats and it’s an absolute disgrace,” she said.