Killalea surfers get short-changed

From Joe Ruiz-Avila, Neutral Bay

It IS incomprehensible that Professor Andrew Short would wish to concern himself and his group with only a 500-metre strip of water (Lake Times, September 4).

With such an objective we could not be sure that they would be able to attain beachcomber accreditation. The potential statutes themselves would in all probability protect only the flotsam and jetsam in the bay. Should a future government decide that this spot could be a good position for a nuclear power station or coal loader, does anyone really believe that protection was at hand.

Then to suggest that the land- based environment, complete with commercial and political baggage, is out of bounds to the committee, is clearly a nonsense if not rather a short-sighted impediment.

But it does beg the question: Has the Australian Surfing Reserve National Reference Group publicly railed against this development? And, can this group assure the community that they have no conflicts of interest?

More important, Professor, you need to understand why some of us oldies, the first surfers at “The Farm”, could be upset. As steelworks apprentices, “The Farm” afforded us an idyllic parallel universe, where we surfed, played and loved. “The Farm” was an escape hatch from the visually stark confrontation of blast furnaces, open hearths, stacks and red oxide coloured mills.

And when we straddled our surf boards waiting for the next wave, there did not exist an amphitheatre of condos and flats to disrupt our vision splendid. This generation remains entitled to have available those same feelings of exhilaration, sense of freedom and opportunity of escape.

Yes, Professor, we took these for granted, but we are now not prepared to sacrifice this to merchants of greed. So fairy-floss edicts designed to wave flags, install lovely polished plaques and store memories in some manner of mausoleum are futile, naive, and designed to distract us from saving that environment.