Land & environment

Independent Federal Member for Indi, Helen Haines, visited the Upper Murray last week, receiving progress reports on bushfire recovery projects including the new battery and solar energy system at Corryong Health, the Playles Hill Park project and the Tintaldra Recreation Reserve upgrade ... "It will address the reliability, vulnerability and variability of the region’s electricity supply, which in the 2019-2020 bushfires meant power-outages lasted for weeks in Corryong and district including loss of communications": Independent Federal Member for Indi, Helen Haines.

Water buybacks were blamed for 3261 job losses across the economies of 40 southern Murray-Darling Basin communities, according to Murray-Darling Basin Authority modelling by the NSW Irrigation Council ... "Across the southern Basin States, 648 lost jobs (21 per cent of FTE jobs losses) in the profiled NSW communities profiled were attributed to water recovery, 1684 (30 per cent) in northern Victoria and 929 (45 per cent) in South Australia, mostly in its Riverland horticultural centres": NSWIC CEO, Claire Miller.

"Stop the fill, don’t drown our town" were the familiar chants of about 40 protesters who were joined by Greens MLC and environmental lawyer Sue Higginson to support Cr Greg Clancy’s motion to rezone land at West Yamba not already subject to development approval at Clarence Valley Council’s April meeting. Joined by members of Yamba Community Action Network Yamba CAN, who were armed with a 3.01 metre pole to indicate the height of fill at Carrs Drive, Ms Higginson said Cr Clancy’s motion was trying to put the brakes on development on the floodplain for all the right reasons.

A fisherman who has been trawling the Clarence River all his life is behind a legal class action hoping to compensate fishermen who haven’t had any income since February due to a White Spot control order preventing the harvesting of uncooked prawns ... "We are on our asses, we’ve had no compensation, the only compensation we were given by the Department of Primary Industries was a one-third reduction in our management fees, which is nothing": Bruce Clark.

The Naracoorte Lucindale Council administration does not have an engineering report that mitigates the risk of flooding in the township, says Cr Cameron Grundy. Cr Grundy told the council’s meeting on March 28 that he was inundated with reports from the public worried about the blocked Naracoorte Creek and the flooding implications it could have.