The dredging debate at Caloundra has sparked a wave of varying opinions and views as to what we should do to balance the needs of the boating community, including the vital lifesaving work of the Caloundra Coast Guard, with the unpredictable forces of nature.
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Readers have shared a variety of their strong opinions on the dredging matter:
Nature vs dredging
Whilst I appreciate the impact that the inevitable breakthrough has impacted on Golden Beach and Caloundra, we must remember we are living on a live planet, and it is continuing to evolve and change.
During our current attitudes towards the planet we live on, where do where draw the line regarding what is right and wrong with interfering with its evolvement?
In the area of emissions, we seem to fight and revolt against anyone or company that threatens to harm the environment.
We stop dams, which are needed to provide life-giving water supplies for our ever-increasing population, from being built as they may impact on existing wildlife, rare species, or other environmental impacts.
I am by no means a greenie, but I will not stand for hypocrisy, especially when it has the potential to require the spending of millions of dollars, on-going, to maintain the Pumicestone Passage as we have come to remember it.
Lloyd Cutler
Pelican Waters
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Dredging is common sense
Like many users of the Pumicestone Passage I am a keen kayaker and have been using the passage for over 10 years.
Just a thought:
If the new break through was dredged and it did re-silt itself and it got dredged again and again would we not ultimately flush the passage so that it could be used again? Allowing ocean going yachts and big fishing craft to get to sea.
In 2000 I recall motoring the full length of the passage. I also recall the ferry which left from the southern Bribie Island bridge to take a trip to Caloundra, a business opportunity that has disappeared. Bird life on the passage is phenomenal.
I think the meeting with Jason Hunt makes sense as long as we don’t loose sight of the ‘Big Picture’ and see the opportunities that an accessible flowing passage can have.
We need hydrologists/engineers/businesspeople with vision – not a “Can’t Do Attitude”.
100,000 signatures on a petition won’t be a problem, but why do we have to resort to that for something that is common sense.
Phil van Niekerk
Moffat Beach
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Natural changes
I am not affected by the Bribie Island breakthrough, but as a child visiting Caloundra on holidays in the 1950s, I was aware that the bar was situated in a spot similar to where the new breakthrough has occurred.
Knowing that the new bar is a work of nature that may resolve its location over decades, I am concerned that dredging may bring about detrimental results.
Of course, I am not a hydrologist or a resident of the affected area, so my call to leave well enough alone may upset people, businesses and organisations that are inconvenienced.
Nature works slowly, and our demands are made in the knowledge of a finite lifespan. We may need to think very carefully about what we wish for and whether, our demands if agreed to, may well backfire on subsequent generations.
John Edds
Maroochydore
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Waste of effort
I don’t think dredging is the solution. The first storms and we’re back to square one.
When the ocean looked like breaking through, that’s when it should have been shored up. But it’s too late now.
Dredging could work in the short term, but it needs to be permanent. How will this affect the wildlife and fish?
Fran Fairley
Golden Beach
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Save historic bridge
The Bli Bli bridge has to be saved.
It’s the gateway from Bli Bli up to Mudjimba and another coastal towns.
I remember when the cane train use to travel over the bridge back in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, my stepdad’s family use to have cane farms nearby.
The bridge has history to tell – repair the bridge, not remove the bridge.
Michelle Somers
Sunshine Coast
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Housing support
There are many elderly people with spare rooms that they could use as rentals at a reasonable price, if they did not lose money from their pensions.
It would help the elderly to manage the high prices and help provide accommodation for desperate renters. Govt needs to allow pensioners a higher income on top of pensions to live better.
Bea Gallagher
Meridan Plains
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New Maroochydore car park
I sincerely hope the new parking station (to be built in the Maroochydore CBD) is designed a lot better than the Mooloolaba one where the access ramps/roads are ridiculously tight, especially for the larger vehicles a lot of people drive these days.
No wonder it is under-utilised.
Mark Clark
Buderim
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Kangaroo hospital
I would love to help, but I have made a personal stand because of the Sunshine Coast Council culling of Kangaroos in the Pelican Waters area.
Since moving into the area, I have becoming disgusted with the SCC. Whilst they are keen to cull and relocate native kangaroos, they allow cats and dogs to roam free. Trying to get them to act on these animals is very frustrating.
When we first moved here, I loved seeing the wild kangaroos moving throughout the area. But someone complained and the council moved swiftly, and they were gone.
Try complaining to the SCC about dogs off leashes and you just hit a brick wall.
I would much rather see natural wildlife than domesticated dogs and cats.
Lloyd Cutler
Pelican Waters
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Do you have an opinion to share? Submit a Letter to the Editor with your name and suburb at Sunshine Coast News via: news@sunshinecoastnews.com.au
