Having taken a casual interest in 2 of the many ‘healthy waterways’ projects around Canberra I thought it was time to probe a little further on the internet. I have previously mentioned the one in lower Narrabundah.
‘A new wetland will take advantage of open space between Matina Street and the Monaro Highway.’ The other one is at JWNR. ‘A channel on Jerrabomberra Creek will be rehabilitated to create a new wetland’. It appears the ‘channel’ is in fact the billabong
representing the former course of the creek. I had a closer look yesterday, and have just made the attached rough sketch of the area concerned, relying on my memory. There seems to be provision for the billabong to accept water from Jerra Ck when in flood
(red arrow), with the outlet flowing under the raised boardwalk (yellow arrow). One hopes natural vegetation will be included rather than an urban park setting created.
Yesterday I noticed the B-s kite still at its post on the raptor tree (which looked rather solitary), and a dozen D Woodswallows were making use of the odd small tree remaining in the fenced expanse of bare earth. I
was interested to see in the summarised public comments on the ACT govt website that the only one for this particular project was from the airport, which entered its customary caution about the dangers of bird strike. Apparently that applied to all wetlands
development proposals. Here I might digress by pointing out that at moment there are certainly large numbers of Straw-necked Ibis flying around and making use of all kinds of grassy places. If one of those does collide with an aircraft it will surely be
unfair to blame the nearest wetland. It will be equally reasonable to blame the lawns of Parlt House, green and well-watered and closed to ibis-disturbing humans.
It seems that a large number of people who turn down Dairy Road are in fact headed not for Kelly Swamp but for the mini-brewery and its beer-garden atmosphere. Yesterday there might have been 60 customers enjoying the
sun at the wooden tables. It will be interesting to see whether the adjacent wetlands will be separated by a substantial fence, or invite access with a convenient gate. If the latter I would foresee a strong possibility that a beer-garden customer might
fall, or possibly even jump, into the enhanced billabong. We Australians know all about haunted billabongs.
Perhaps also relevant here, I was watching a short interview with David Astle on ABC tv about texting abbreviations. One was ‘tl;dr’. This, it seems, represents ‘too long; didn’t read’. Is there yet, or can we expect
in the future, ‘ts; ps’? (‘too short; poorly substantiated’)
