Residents save remnant bush

Thank you for your most informative article about the status of the remnant bushland of the Peninsula "Most of our bush 'endangered'" (Peninsula News, April 23).

It is heartening to see that much of what has survived the continued assault on it by Gosford Council has now been granted some protection under state and federal legislation.

I would like to advise you that as of yesterday (April 29) a small remnant of the Sydney Coastal Estuary Swamp Forest that is Ettymalong Creek bordering the former Ettymalong Swamp was saved from destruction by Gosford Council's engineers by a decision of Environment Australia (EA).

This is the third time that the vigilance of the residents has been crucial in halting council engineers in their primitive efforts to turn our remnant creeks into sterile drains.

On previous attempts, our councillors have unanimously rejected their engineers proposals.

This time, the engineers have chosen to go over the heads of the councillors and appeal to Environment Australia for permission to destroy and again common sense and good science have prevailed.

Ettymalong Creek Landcare have been trying to assist council, councillors and the community in resolving drainage problems in an environmentally sustainable way for some years now and were disappointed that council's flooding and drainage engineers did not even advise us that they were attempting yet another attack on our creeks.

Having found out about this proposal two days before public submissions were due we quickly sought an extension, which EA were happy to grant.

The proposal as advertised was for the removal of 167 immature native trees but on reading the supporting documents there were some 500 trees to be removed, many mature Swamp Mahogany trees that are a food source for the rare and endangered Swift parrot and Koala.

So much for "endangered ecological communities".

This is doubly disappointing for our group because we took part in a walk of this part of the creek with council's consultant engineer and Cr Penton and agreed on some removal of trees and illegal fill which combined with bush repair and replanting would have satisfied all parties.

Unfortunately, council broke that agreement by removing trees that were to be retained until replanting further up the banks was done.

National Parks and Wildlife Services put a stop on the works.

Incredibly, the consulting ecologist's previous work for council was also found to be inadequate, forcing council to obtain an independent study by National Environmental Consulting Services (NECS) at huge cost to ratepayers which outlined serious deficiencies in the work including failing to consider clearing of native vegetation as a key threatening process.

Bryan Ellis, Umina