YOUR SAY: Border Mail letters to the editor

Wodonga Council would still be excessively overcharging its community over $2 million each year if it were not for The Border Mail, its journalists and the Ombudsman. At the time, Wodonga Council engaged in efforts to essentially suppress the release of information to the public.

Employees sign a code of conduct and are restricted from speaking out and hence my family and I plus other supportive colleagues suffered at the hands of Wodonga council management.

Past supportive employees continue to suffer whilst the senior directors at the heart of the $18 million rate gouging continue to be paid and promoted within local government. We cannot rely on the integrity and ethics at all levels of government.

I can only say, thank goodness for our Border Mail and their journalists, who vehemently protect and serve our community. The public became informed, Victorian legislation changed and transparency improved.

In the public interest, we need to stand together, protect the whistleblowers, protect our journalists and especially our media from suppressive legislation and attacks on our rights and freedoms.

Life has its twists and turns or as in the case herein its ebbs and flows. The Norske Skog paper mill has been purchased by the Pratt family interests (Visy) and is due for closure. Unless otherwise repurposed the closure means a lot more heartache for the region than the loss of around 200 jobs.

It is pleasing to see many of these employees may be out of work only on a short term basis as per The Border Mail report (October 26). However I would like to take you back 10 years to August-November in 2009 when a debate was raised by a concerned reader regarding the paper mill's extractions and discharges into the Murray River.

At that time an announcement was made that Norske Skog had gained approval from the NSW goverment to: 'A'- Pump 13.5 ML per day every day from the river for its freshwater production requirements.That is an annual entitlement of 5000ML (5GL) and 'B'- Had gained approval to discharge 3ML per day ie: 1100ML (1.1GL) annually of treated waste water back into the Murray River.

This treated waste water contained approximately 1500 tonnes of salt going into the river annually. The master plan to offset the salt discharge into the Murray River was to extract 3000 tonnes of salt from the Billabong Creek just north of Walla Walla. Did this ever occur? Where did this salt end up going to?

Fortunately with the shutdown of the paper mill due to many factors (dwindling demand for newsprint, energy costs, the loss of value of the Australian dollar among some of the factors) there is a silver lining to this cloud. The demand on what is now a precious water allocation will be eased and in conjunction with the cessation of 1500 tonnes of salt being dumped into the river the Norske Skog closure news is not all bad. I raise my hat to the late Jeff Williams who fought to have this information made public in 2009 but unfortunately did not get to see the outcome of his concerns.