We tried, we really did, Glossy Blacks, but we fear we let you down. It has been such a privilege to have you around. Sunrise Beach is one place where we could watch you feed and drink and where we could show you off to the world.
When we saw survey stakes go into the ground around your favourite trees, we were so alarmed and worried about things to come. We set out to make people understand how important this patch of earth is for you and the many critters and humans who share this place.
We sent our pleas on your behalf to anybody anywhere. We got 2,700 signatures and many letters of support and went to a meeting with Blue Care – the developer. You see, they are building a retirement village where your feed trees still stand as I write.
I know you wouldn’t have minded sharing your place with the elderly and we bet they would have enjoyed your company too. We asked the developer to rethink the project and to retain the majority of your feed trees, but the developer in the end only kept a few.
We did everything we could apart from taking Noosa Council to court and maybe we should have tried that. In a world that is burning, we thought people who could have made a difference would see sense and reason, and that kindness would win the future for you. Well, it didn’t. And we are so sorry, we didn’t do any better for you.
Our Noosa mayor says he likes photographing you – but he didn’t do as much to help us protect you as we would have liked. He was afraid Noosa Council would ‘lose its standing in court’. We had asked for the developer, experts and local community to come together to work out a redesign, but we got mostly legalese ‘our hands are tied’ explanations. Our Council is trying, but we find it can lack imagination and compassion.
On Thursday we organised a protest before the Council met – a few wonderful people turned up, but many who we thought would want to send a message of care to the media and the developer did not. A kind Councillor woman took our petition to table in the Council.
Unlike some other Councillors, at least the mayor bothered to come out and promised he would write a letter the very next day on your behalf, but we haven’t heard from him since. It is late and our hope is dwindling.
Your home is part of a ‘Biosphere Reserve’. It won’t mean anything to you and we feel now that it doesn’t mean much at all. The people in charge didn’t help to protect and keep you safe. Instead of protecting you as living iconic beings, they seem to prefer spending most of their money on trying to bring back wildlife that is already gone. Yes, it doesn’t make much sense, we know.
The Birding Group at the Noosa Parks Association have over the years been cherishing you and a lovely woman made little signs to protect your feed trees, but this didn’t help much.
There is even a ‘Glossy Black Conservancy’ set up for your protection. But this didn’t help much either.
Soon we will see bulldozers clear the site where you are used to find your food. We think you’ve come here to Sunrise for decades, if not since the Dreamtime. We know many nesting trees have been destroyed around the area too and it’s not easy for you to find a hollow to lay one of your rare eggs every two years. Bringing up your young and finding food for them will now get harder.
We hope you can make it through the tough times over the next seven or eight years. By then something they call ‘offset planting’ might mean more of your feed trees will bear orts for you to eat from again. And maybe people will even plant them in their gardens. We know you are fussy, but there is hope.
With great sorrow for you and all the critters and humans who share your habitat.
Glossy Team Sunrise
Bloody marvelous,Bettina!”Shaming” doesn’t appear to soften some “hardened” hearts.
There is still hope so don’t give up just yet. Although the Mayor has rushed this through without doing the due diligence Council has to do by Law he is still hiding something that changes the whole ball game. Noosa Council originally earmarked this land for Public use but someone in previous Council changed that amendment and re-gazetted it as a conservation area. Then Council after that designated the area be kept for special care. All of these plans were made without realising the TCDD contamination was even there. As the Sewerage Treatment plant was always going to have toxic outflow the TCDD was never factored in. But the original Council decisions made after the Treatment plant was built and upgraded were changed to residential purposes by a successive Council not realising the toxicity coming from this Plant that the Council that built it would of been advised of which led to their decision to make this a regeneration area instead of public use.
Then there is a totally new aspect to all of this. The known wetland land zoned for environmental rehabilitation has been gradually poisoning all of the Native Fauna in that area leading to the Frog species in that area becoming endangered as well as birdlife decreasing. This is obviously from the TCDD contamination getting through the Treatment Plant and going untreated into the ocean. Noosa Council is aware of the TCDD contamination in this area and has requested Professor Skillitor test this entire area for TCDD content and form a report for Council over the next twelve months.
The Council should not by Law be approving any initial works order for this venture until the Professor’s report is tabled. Instead the Mayor approved the development be given the initial approvals to commence work and notified through Brian Stockwell that if the Professors report changed the development the Council would deal with the information as received. It was under the opinion that Council was sure enough it was on the right road to plan ahead without the robust science from the Professor. That was very wrong.
The Mayor has taken on the responsibility for Council to override the Professors testing and hypotheses creation testing and push ahead with a development that was never allowed by the original Council that built that area with the Treatment Plant. Noosa Council did not do the planning for this development when they approved use of this land. It was a subsequent Council that was poorly informed that changed it to future special purposes allowing them to plan this development. The decision was made fifteen years ago long before the contamination was ever noticed. The Wellington led Council has merely relied on that poor decision by a previous ill-advised Council and has continued their plans without any change.
This means that no diligence whatsoever has been done on whether this new development and the existing school grounds can be used at all for human purposes. It is more than likely that the TCDD contamination continually coming from the Treatment Plant has also dumped extremely toxic amounts of TCDD in this area. As the flow from the Plant is a known constant carrier of the TCDD any human contact even with airborne particles from this area should be avoided at all costs. The diligence wasn’t done on the viability of the neighbouring school or this development and if it had of been done it would not allow both the school and the special care facility. The Professor should already know this by his initial testing but doesn’t have the robust science yet to make an informed announcement. The Mayor is pushing this all through without even mentioning the contamination in this area. He seems to be of the opinion that nothing the Professor can do will alter his decision. He is absolutely wrong. The Professor will have to notify Council that the TCDD is raised in this area and children should not be exposed to any form of contamination as well as the new development should not be built under any circumstances. It is deplorable behaviour by the Mayor to use a direction from a Council that had no idea this ecosystem had any contamination let alone a monster that big they will never control it and continue down the same path. This is not legal and should face the full force of the Law. Because the new Council is too lazy to perform the due diligence and readjust the town plan to rehabilitate this toxic flow they have now made Council liable for compensation by the new developers and every parent that has a child at that school. They are now knowingly exposing children to Airborne particles of TCDD which will affect them and the next five generations of their families. All because they refuse to view it with the possibility of a chemical contamination of one of the most deadliest chemicals in the world.
To give you an idea of how strong this chemical is One teaspoon of this pure TCDD would kill the entire population of Sydney and no-one could live there for at least Five Hundred years. Ten Million litres of pure chemical containing this TCDD were dumped on the Noosa Shire over a fifty year period. Knowing that the Noosa Council has refused to help the children to relocate away from this area, they have proposed approving more fragile people into this contaminated area and they intend to continue to kill the native wildlife to enable the direction of a previous uninformed Council.
Any Councillors that don’t allow all of this diligence to be tested by robust science before making another move should be stood down from their respective positions for reckless endangerment of human lives especially children and the aged population which will be severely affected for life. We have seen too much of this reckless behaviour by the Wellington led Council and it has reached a point where we are not safe in our community anymore, With this Council relying on previous decisions made by Council instead of a Council that makes diligent new decisions in a totally different environment both politically and contamination wise the whole community is in danger. Noosa Council needs to shut down all approvals for development until a new contamination contingency plan can be formed and the new town plan written around it.
That said there is a new problem. The EPA Victoria has been studying the wetlands in Victoria that are known to be heavily affected by TCDD contamination and they have found wild ducks to be too toxic for human consumption. It appears from their testing that the TCDD levels cause a Pfas like contamination to all birdlife. This would mean that all birdlife in this area would also be affected by this Pfas contamination. That would have severely reduced the breeding population and also the viability of the eggs. Species such as the Black Cockatoo will need to be genetically studied and their ecology mapped before any decision is made to adjust their habitat in any way. We must know before they destroy the known habitat whether humans will ever be allowed in this area at all and then when they aren’t there is no need to upset these breeding birds in any way. If and when Council do their due diligence on these concerns this will all become apparent. With a Professor working in this environment they should not be making uninformed decisions like this about any development in that area. Until all the known wildlife in this area is tested for Pfas and TCDD contamination levels no habitat should be brought into question. Either Council wants to proceed and put itself in a legally challengeable position and face disciplinary action for it’s lack of forethought or it puts all approvals on hold until the hypotheses is created and gives certain direction with robust science going forward. Because the Black Cockatoo is already suffering diminished numbers in this area studies need to be done under the preservation act to see how bad the damage is and whether the population of these animals can be recovered or maintained under it’s current circumstances. There is a possibility that these birds might also be better off out of this area for their own health. We need accurate information to deal with all these issues that have arisen not rogue Council proceeding blindly to approve a decision made by a Council Fifteen years ago in a majorly different environment.
Perhaps when the parents work out how exposed their children are in this environment they will realise that they are not just fighting for a Black Cockatoo but also their children and grand children’s children to have a healthy life. These parents need to make some noise to the present Council about their children’s daily exposure to this deadly chemical. They should also make some noise for the Black Cockatoo’s at the same time as that will give us the best ecological picture of how bad it has become. We are all in danger while we have the wellington led gung-ho Council overriding robust science to make life easier for the developer so Council doesn’t face court action from them which it would certainly lose in it’s current view. It would rather contaminate every child attending that school with a deadly toxin than upset one developer. Is that what we want from our elected Council? I hope to see a renewed push to save our kids and the birds together and make the Council wait for the appropriate information from the Professor before taking another step in this development. I am hopeful resident families will respond children and all so the Council is forced to make a humane decision for once……
Think you should be proud of your efforts. You did not let the glossies down, you’ve helped them survive. You got the developer to make some significant changes and you got council to commit to ensuring there are enough feed trees for the local glossies. You have made the community more aware of wildlife conservation. Congratulations to you and your team.
Thank you, John!
Yes, you achieved a lot and should be proud of your efforts.
Unfortunately, the planning law system consumes dollars like they are going out of fashion. To just get you in the game with a top law firm you would have had to put $100 K on the table. If you lost the case you could have had costs of a similar, likely much higher, amount awarded against you. It’s a dicey game, planning law.
Sickening. I live in apartment at Sunshine. Some years back the chairman, an out of towner, came from Brisbane and made sure a tree favoured by the black cockatoos was cut down. Reason it’s roots may have interfered with the flatness of the area the bins garbage bins are stored. I tried to speak up but was dismissed. Later council removed one from the other side of the street. It had a dead part so had to go !!!!!!!. Where the chairman took out the tree by the bins, are two trees with bird’s nests in. New chairman has threatened to cut one down, citing, “Money, money” Last Saturday the owl was near bye in the threatened tree , softly tooting for about and hour. On TV , which the owl could hear, was the film, New York, New York. I fear for the birds at Sunshine/ Sunrise… soon there will be no trees left.
Thank you for everything that you have done Bettina and fellow defenders of Glossy Blacks. I share your disappointment. As John said, you have made a difference to their future prospects even though the outcome was far from ideal. We all do our best to care for this beautiful world and that’s as much as we can ask of ourselves. Wishing you the very best in all your endeavours.
Thank you Susie for your kind words. Not sure if I can bear to watch this unfold. With Uniting Church, Noosa Council and other parties coming together we could have done something real good here. It breaks our hearts.
Just a thought, can the trees be transplanted? One by one, with Care. Blue Care to pay. Ferris Park with the dinosaur eggs nearbye.