Anger over pathway

Council signage describing the importance of saltmarsh which will be destroyed by a foreshore concrete shared use pathway.

RESIDENTS of the Koona Bay area of Albion Park Rail gathered at Wooroo Street on Monday to give voice to their concerns about Shellharbour City Councils proposals for the Koona Bay Shared Use Path which went on public exhibition in December last year, claiming that three of the six proposed options present a major environmental threat to an already acknowledged endangered ecological area of Koona Bay.

At the heart of the residents concerns is the fact that Shellharbour City Council, in a joint initiative with the Southern Rivers CMA and the Department of Natural Resources erected bollards and signage at the end of the Wooroo Street reserve (funded in part by a grant from the Department of Planning, Infrastructure and Natural Resources) making extensive mention of the need to protect this area of saltmarsh.

The signage clearly identifies the saltmarsh as an ecologically endangered community that needs to be protected, said local resident Danielle Oliver.

Now three of Councils proposed shared pathway options, including their preferred option, would completely destroy this area with the construction of a solid fill concrete pathway.

A spokesperson for Shellharbour Council said that the six proposed options were put forward to the community to ensure that all possibilities were covered.

Ms Danielle says that she and other residents just cant understand why three of the options were even included in the proposals, because they fly directly in the face of councils own acknowledgement of the need to protect the ecologically endangered area.

It seems like a grand hypocrisy for Council to now be proposing to destroy the ecology of an area that only a short time ago they were committed to protecting, Ms Oliver said.

Ms Oliver claims that even recommendations made by the Department of Natural Resources to Shellharbour Council in June 2005 did not support any form of Shared Use foreshore pathway at all in the area north from Kanahooka St to Shearwater Boulevarde.

Other environmental concerns expressed by residents include the impact that any of the three foreshore options would have on both land and water birds dependent on the areas ecology; the partial destruction of the Swamp Oak Floodplain Forest, listed as an ecologically sensitive community and the interference with and potential destruction of at least three sites of Aboriginal significance, including middens of scientific interest.

We are not against a shared use pathway, but lets put it somewhere where its useful, practical and does not destroy precious habitat areas, Ms Danielle said.

Any of the three on-road options are by far more environmentally sensitive, local pedestrian friendly and financially valid.

Shellharbour Councillor Geoff Rose, who attended the residents meeting has made an approach to Council to try to arrange for a public meeting to be held prior to the closing date for submissions of February 16, 2007.