This never-ending nuisance of forestry slash must stop. What other industries are allowed to discharge their waste products into the environment?
Surely it should be possible to establish regulations that require the logging companies to process the waste material in such a way that it cannot enter the waterways. Small stuff could be shredded, and trucked with larger stuff to facilities where its value could be realised — eg, for compost, firewood, boiler feedstock, pyrolytic or hydrothermal conversion etc.
Forestry have been allowed to “get away with it” for too long. It is not sufficient to excuse current practices on the grounds of cost saving; it is we who pick up the tab.
And how do the contractors who are called upon to deal with the current consequences come out of it?
The caption under the picture of slash building up against the railway bridge (TGH Nov 28) refers to “their sterling work”; I hardly think that is merited when they simply transferred the problem firstly from the William Pettie bridge to the Gladstone Rd bridge, and then to the railway bridge, and finally to the open ocean and thence the beaches.
Until such time as the slash problem is eliminated, can’t the brains at the council house come up with a better solution? How about some sort of boom a bit further upstream, that would allow the material to be caught and removed before it gets anywhere near the bridges or the sea?
Come on, GDC — put your thinking caps on and let’s see some action to eradicate this disgraceful situation.
Peter Wooding
