He promised to investigate our situation and contact us.

After a few weeks when we still had not heard anything we contacted him and he told us that council staff did not take direction from the elected councillors and that we would have to negotiate through council’s legal firm.

We explained we no longer had legal representation as we simply could not afford it.

Council’s legal firm wrote to us and said exactly the same thing as before that they will continue to prosecute us if we try to get the $7000.

After so much wasted money when we won the legal proceedings that they chose to pursue against us, they (BVSC) chose to bully us by threatening further legal proceedings if we try and get the $7000 from them.

We now have little resources left to protect ourselves from the BVSC; we hope that the newly elected councillors may be able to help us. However, we do believe that the community of BVSC has a right to know the amount of money BVSC can spend pursuing legal action against its ratepayers each year.

Ross Watson and Sue Attwood

Kalaru

Logging issue

SIR,

I would like to emphasise the point made by Harriett Swift in her letter of Friday, November 7.

The members of SERCA, the South East Regional Conservation Alliance, are opposed to material for power generation from native forests being included in the 50/50 by 20/20 target for the following reasons:

Native forests are priceless carbon sinks and should not be harvested for woodchips or sawlogs.

Native forest logging is a major contributor to CO2 pollution.

Native forests, if left unlogged and allowed to mature, provide sanctuary for a range of species not found in disturbed ecosystems.

They are much more resilient to impacts such as climate change, disease and fire.

Native forests, particularly those approaching maturity, yield far greater amounts of water than do young regrowth forest.

Since most of our catchments are forested it makes no sense to deplete our already diminishing water supplies by extracting old logs and encouraging regrowth.

Native forest logging in coastal catchments such as the Murrah has resulted in massive erosion and siltation of the estuaries.

The ground cover in undisturbed forest protects the surface soil and minimises erosion.

In summary, a power plant at the Eden chipmill using material from native forests is a false justification for a practice that threatens all these critical values.

It should be strongly resisted by all thinking citizens.

Let us concentrate on real renewable energy.

Dane Wimbush

Bermagui

Water quality

SIR,

Recently an article was published in the Bega District News titled “Bega’s Water Quality”.

In that article, council says they are taking complaints about slightly high iron levels from frustrated residents seriously.

How will the very same residents feel if the unthinkable happens at the proposed super tip, as it did at the Merimbula tip last year?

Leachate, which can contain such toxic contaminants as: chlorinated hydrocarbons, petroleum hydrocarbons, arsenic, chromium and other metals as well as nitrates, pathogens, bacteria and viruses, could find their way into the Bega River system.

The little risk, some risk, limited risk and more of a risk used to describe the chance of leachate contamination to the Bega River system as mentioned in council’s latest, amended, and revised Environmental Impact Statement may well become a reality.

By the time Bega residents can lodge their complaints to council, the damage to the Bega aquifer would be irreversible.

The flow on affect to industries such as the Bega Cheese Factory and its world market would be devastating.

With that industry employing many of the shire’s workforce, Einstein would not be needed to figure out the rest of the equation.

It will then be interesting to see how council attempts to remedy residents’ complaints, if its contamination of the Bega River becomes our worst nightmare. Will they then be taken “seriously” also?

It also begs the question: If the iron levels in the drinking water are such a “serious” issue, why haven’t the hundreds of complaints and concerns from concerned residents about the proposed super tip been taken with as much “seriousness”?

Seriously.

Jeff Smith

Wolumla

Unbelievable?

SIR,

Can you believe this?

Just as our region welcomes the designation of our coast as one of Australia’s top international tourism destinations, Forests NSW moves in to log the forests that form the northern gateway to this outstanding region.

Recently the Federal Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson, announced Aust-ralia’s Coastal Wilderness under the National Landscapes Program, a Com-monwealth initiative between Tourism Australia and Parks Australia (part of the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts).

It recognises Australia’s top 20 experiences for international tourists.

Australia’s Coastal Wild-erness extends from Bermagui in NSW to Lakes Entrance in Victoria.

It is the best accessible temperate forest coastal wilderness in the world.

Even without National Landscape recognition and marketing it is already the 16th most important earner of inbound tourism dollars.

National Landscape marketing is aimed at high

paying, discerning, “soft footprint” tourists - people who are willing to pay a high price to walk on our fantastic beaches, swim in our clean sapphire seas and marvel at our coastal forests with their myriad bird and animal species.

They also want to enjoy the best accommodation, food and wine experiences we can offer.

With the huge interest being shown by the regional hospitality industry, peak tourism bodies, the Bega Valley Shire Council and Tourism Board, we are poised to develop this potentially significant economic opportunity for the region.

It is an economic opportunity that promises to infiltrate and be shared across the community on a much broader scale than woodchipping.

But if Forests NSW log the Bermagui forests that comprise the gateway to Aus-tralia’s Coastal Wilderness then we cannot deliver the intact environment these well-heeled, educated visitors expect.

Does the NSW Gove-rnment really want to trash one of the best regional economic initiatives to come along?

Perversity at its “best”.

Does it want to go head-to-head with the peak tourism bodies in this country, or the Commonwealth?

Maybe it doesn’t know about it – maybe someone should tell the relevant Ministers so they can consider the relative merits of the economic benefit and jobs that can be derived from Australia’s Coastal Wild-erness and the few dollars per tonne we get for our woodchips.

Prue Acton

Wallagoot