How To Stop The Commerical Destruction Of Pittwater

[Laredo]

I know there are many of us who are concerned about the impact of pro-fishing in Pittwater and the Hawkesbury. Its not just because there are less fish for me to catch its because the damage to such a beautiful marine environment is something that truly disturbs me.

There have been political attempts to ban pro fishing in the area, but the expenses of buying out licenses undermine support for such a venture.

Basically I think a a good way to challenge pro-fishing in the area would be to finance a survey of dioxins in resident fish. I suspect that, like in Sydney Harbour, unsafe levels of dioxins would be found. After this information hit the media, the public reaction may create a lobby for a politician to step in and do something about it and it could achieve a situation like we have in in Sydney Harbour, which lets face it, has done wonders for the situation here. What do you guys think?

[mrmoshe]

I think you will find the fish caught in Pittwater would have very low levels of dioxin..if any

as the harbour issue all stemmed from the old Union Carbide site at Homebush Bay that was leaching

dioxins straight into the harbour west of the Harbour Bridge.

Also..testing for dioxins is expensive too...for a very speculative result.

Cheers,

Pete.

[pelican]

There wasn't the heavy industry up on Pitwater shores like there was on Sydney harbour or down at Botany / Cooks river.

Very interesting up the Parra river as some experts have said that the pollution has been spread more in the recent years since the introduction of the current rivercats. Pollution was there from industry but has been disturbed. Their underwater wave vertical in the water column apparantly has stirred the sediment and allowed them further down the river. Areas I used to see with weed and oysters are now barren.

If only it was done scientifically with no agenda and not politically motivated we might actually know what is happening and get a beter idea of our waterways health and capicity of fish.

Pel

[neilm]

We have also tried to get commercial haul netting banned to try and stop the spread of the noxious caulerpa taxifolia weed which is a major problem in Pittwater.

I have sent letter to the State govt, Pittwater LGA amongst others to try and get some action, but so far just the Dear Sir standard format 'thankyou for your letter' has come back.

The best we can do is to be a bit cagey about our reports on what's happening in Pittwater (I know this is not the intention of this site, it's about sharing info) - a couple of years ago the pros were monitoring sites like this one and took action when they saw the fishing was on the improve and removed literally tonnes of kingies and ruined the season.

Sorry to be a bit negative. But I'm always open to suggestions to try and get action...

[caine]

i dont know but maybe we shouldnt buy hawksbury river prawns as bait.

[daleyboy]

As Pete said .. Most of the dioxins in Sydney came from that one site in Homebush .. theres also something about the particular type of dioxin they emiited which was worse than other dioxins .. or something like that .. i work for a govt dept and was able to go to an internal seminar on the dioxins in the harbour!

Interesting piece of info i got from said seminar ......

Mullet and Tailor caught in balmoral had much higher levels of dioxins than flathead caught in homebush bay! Go figure .......

Edited November 13, 2007 by daleyboy