‘Yarra Bay sailing club will go down if cruise terminal is built’
AS the government continues to look at Botany Bay as an answer to its cruise capactiy woes, members of Yarra Bay Sailing Club tell the Courier the terminal would kill them off.
Southern Courier
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YARRA Bay Sailing Club is a misleading name for the 90-year-old institution.
Yes, there are boats and yes some members do sail. But the insignificant white and grey building at the end of Yarra Rd is so much more than a sports club.
It is a meeting place, a community centre, a place for cold winter nights and glorious sunny days. It hosts 18th birthdays, weddings, funerals and everything in-between.
And if plans to build a cruise terminal across the water come to fruition, members fear it will be gone.
“I don’t think we would fit in with the plan,” club president Barry Wallace, said. “They will want hotels and infrastructure along here. It would mean the end of us.”
The club dates back to 1928 and was originally run from an old boatshed. Members leased a plot of Crown land and in 1941 the first clubhouse was built. The present clubhouse remains the centre of the community. There’s a bar, snooker tables, restaurant and terrace with stunning views over the bay and a function space with a stage.
It’s not flash and the restaurant isn’t going to win any hats any time soon. But it is a second home for many.
In particular the club has a significant number of indigenous members from nearby La Perouse.
“That room out there is the centre of a lot of people’s lives,” treasurer Lynne Wallace said, pointing to a group of friends chatting over a lunchtime schooner.
“It is where they come to meet. Three, four times a week. We can’t lose that,” she said.
Steve Burley, who is the club’s sailing director, fears losing the club would impact not only his generation but those to come.
“It would be the end of sailing here,” he said.
“The government bangs on about obesity and wants kids to get outdoors but then they are closing down public amenities. This beach is packed at the weekend.”
But amid the dismay there is defiance. “We’ll fight it mate,” Mr Burley said. “We’ll fight it all the way.”
John Rennie, 74, has been a regular since before he could stand on two feet.
He has seen the creation of Port Botany and building of airport runways.
But he fears a cruise terminal would spell the end of the club. As he contemplates what lies ahead, he thinks back to his childhood.
“My great grandparents lived just down the road, ” Mr Rennie said.
“We had a horse and cart and we used to go to the markets in the city.
Coming back down we would take this narrow track through the bush. I remember it well. We used to call this place utopia. It was unspoilt, it was beautiful and that’s what we’re fighting for.”
STUDY FINDS DREDGING HARMFUL TO SEA LIFE
By Marie Hogg
Just 12 years ago the State Government installed an artificial reef at Yarra Bay to revitalise fish stock and transform the marine ecosystem.
It now supports an array of fish, invertebrates and macroalgae.
The burgeoning ecosystem faces its extinction however, if Federal Government plans for a cruise terminal in the bay come to fruition.
Yarra is a shallow bay, reaching barely 5m deep in most places. From the main channel to Molineaux Point. depths reach no more than 15.6m.
Dredging, likely in order to reshape the sea floor for safe cruise access, raises concern for the bay’s marine environment.
The Australian Institute of Marine Science is engaged in a $19 million research program, co-led by Dr Ross Jones, to better understand dredging impacts. In a co-authored study published in 2017 on the direct effect of dredging on fish, Dr Ross found multiple environmental stressors including sediment stress, release of toxic contaminants, hydraulic entrainment and noise pollution.
In the majority of observations, turbidity resulting in suspended sedimentation led to physical damage, substantial behavioural changes and even death.
“The early life stages such as eggs and larvae were most likely to suffer lethal impacts, while behavioural effects were more likely to occur in adult catadromous fishes,” the study found.