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Hughes urges council to take a stand over Lowly
Here is the article that appeared in the Whyalla News 7/7/2008.
Whyalla’s Deputy Mayor, Eddie Hughes, is going to push for the re-zoning of the Point Lowly Peninsula at the next council meeting so as to protect and enhance the Peninsula’s environmental, recreational and visual amenity values.
The State Government is currently facilitating a process that will lead to the industrialisation of the Point Lowly Peninsula and the creation of a port in the middle of the globally significant cuttlefish breeding aggregation.
“Industrial proposals currently on the table will fundamentally alter the nature of the Point Lowly Peninsula and seriously degrade its environmental and recreational assets".
“I fully support industrial development in our backyard but it should occur in that part of the yard that is already industrialised.
“There is an abundance of under used land on OneSteel’s indenture land and the state’s largest industrial estate across the road from OneSteel.
“All of the land potentially available is in close proximity to OneSteel’s port, a port that could be expanded at the expense of a third party to accommodate a range of users.
“Everybody would be a winner.
“The Whyalla community has a special responsibility with the globally significant cuttlefish aggregation on our door step.
“The aggregation is particularly vulnerable because of its breeding cycle and the mounting evidence that the cuttlefish that gather around the Point Lowly Peninsula every winter are only weakly linked to cuttlefish in the southern Spencer Gulf.
“The aggregation attracts film crews, scientists and divers from around the world because it is an amazing biological phenomenon so it appears incredibly short sighted to push for the area to be industrialised when there are clear alternatives.
“To suggest that copper concentrate could go out over a jetty at Point Lowly is especially concerning given that cuttlefish, like all molluscs, are particularly at risk from elevated copper levels.
“The Point Lowly Peninsula is a very important recreational resource for the Whyalla community and visitors with the best beaches within one hundred kilometres and long established shack communities.
“What is being proposed will destroy the amenity of the area - no other community would be expected to give up so much for so little in return.
“The jobs that will be generated from all of the proposed developments add up to less than you would find in one medium sized enterprise.
“This comes at a time when we are going to lose access to massive areas of bushland and there is a threat to the remainder of our northern coast line as a result of the proposed defence range expansion.
“Whyalla could end up as a greatly diminished community with limited access to close at hand environmental and recreational assets.
“We need to work together as community to protect the Point Lowly Peninsula and get the players in the corporate sector and the State Government to cooperate and open up and expand the OneSteel harbour.”