SYDNEY — An alliance of 21 community and environmental groups has come together in the Liverpool area in response to the degraded condition of the Georges River and its potential threat to health, quality of life and wildlife.
The Georges River Environmental Alliance aims to improve environmental quality in the Georges River basin catchment and to protect natural habitats.
The river, rising east of the small coal mining town of Appin on the Illawarra escarpment, falls 350 metres on its 97 km journey to Botany Bay, providing 86% of all catchment into the bay. Numerous large creeks and tidal inlets act as feeders en route.
Large floods continue the natural process of flushing and renewal approximately at 10-year intervals. Urban development, with its removal of vegetation in the catchment area, has increased the severity of each succeeding flood.
The Georges River would not be recognisable today to George Bass, who penetrated the upper reaches of the river from Botany Bay and who is responsible for its name.
Most of the forests surrounding the river have been cleared. Its 1000 sq km of catchment is the home of 850,000 residents in 11 council areas, according to alliance group secretary Sharyn Cullis.
A consultant biologist's report commissioned by Campbelltown Council in 1977 noted that platypus, which once inhabited the upper reaches of the river, had not been seen for 30 years. In the study, water rats were expected to be found, but none were sighted.
Several species of fauna "of special note" were found in the upper reaches of the river, including the fan-tailed cuckoo, rock warbler, spotted quail thrush and yellow tufted honeyeater, and six different species of snake, many different lizards and numerous marsupials.
There were also significant members of flora of note, including the selective food of koalas in the area, grey gum and red gum.
Degradation of the bushland adjacent to the river continues apace. Most days of the year, and especially after any precipitation, the Georges is a muddy yellow. Sunlight penetrates just a few centimetres beneath the water surface. The smell is of putrefaction.
This is despite the fact that Botany Bay is covered by several international treaties on wildlife protection.
Bob Wilson, former Water Board managing director and author of the Georges River Basin Plan, in a release to the Telegraph Mirror that coincided with the launch of the new environmental alliance, blamed Sydney's ancient sewerage system for killing our rivers. As Sydney has spread west and south, little adequate infrastructure has been provided for the treatment and transport of sewage and industrial wastes.
When the ancient sewerage system is unable to cope with its extra load — usually after heavy rain — it is discharged into the river at 452 spots adding 3500 million litres of untreated sewage into the Georges River system annually.
In recent years oyster farmers in Botany Bay and tidal sections of the river have had their produce withdrawn from markets for weeks on end because of high faecal counts.
Sewage is only one of the contaminants which threaten the river. Two of the larger creeks and their tributaries — Saltpan, running east from Bankstown, and Prospect, which drains the industrial suburbs from Penrith to Lansvale — are little more than large industrial drains for the thousands of factories and enterprises along their banks.
All of the small watercourses emptying into the river have water which is unfit for domestic, recreational or stock use because of chemical or biological contamination. Some, such as Peter Meadows Creek, have been officially considered a health hazard.
In other areas, where once there was dense bushland, such as the released army land around Holsworthy, water courses are being bulldozed to drain new housing estates. Development in many cases, especially downstream from Liverpool, continues right up to the riverbank and onto the flood plain.
Stormwater from housing estates such as Macquarie Fields is a major form of contamination for the river.
Other sources of pollution, including several quarries, are now again adding tonnes of silt to the river. Sand is also extracted from the river by the millions of tonnes per year. Ironically, much of it ends up in concrete, which is major cause of stormwater run-off.
Soil is removed from the river environs for agricultural purposes, degrading bushland and contributing to the instability of the river banks.
Several large garbage tips have been situated on the banks of the river, not to mention the hundreds of obsolete cars dumped around the shores and on the river bed.
Despite the river's unhealthy past and present uses, Sharyn Cullis believes, "The river is not dead, and it's still a valuable resource for the people living near its banks".