On Saturday 8 November, nearly 200 community members gathered from across the Cooks River Catchment to learn about some of the key issues impacting our waterways. The forum was titled, ‘What’s Making Our Catchment Sick…and how to fix it.’

Representatives from the community discussed the lack of government policy to address stormwater, the legacy of concrete channelisation and the persistent degrading steel sheet pilling along the banks. 

Steel Sheet Piling

Peter Munro from The Mudcrabs, explained the steel sheet pilling found along the 6km of the river’s edge between Marrickville and Hurlstone Park. Munro pointed out that at present, no single government agency has claimed responsibility for the sheet steel.

One of the objectives of the Coastal Management Program, led by the Cooks River Alliance, is to identify an owner for this ‘orphaned asset’ and determine measures to address the public and ecological health risk.

Concrete Channelisation

Gareth Wreford, from the Cooks River Valley Association, spoke about the need to transition away from concrete chanelisation to ‘renaturalised’ nature-based solutions. He pointed to examples within the Cooks River Catchment of this being done well, such as the Cup and Saucer Wetlands in Canterbury, renaturalisation in Campsie and the Yana Badu Wetlands in Chullora.

Water Quality

Lastly, Earlwood resident and water program assessment and evaluation manager Brian Keogh spoke about the need to include stormwater controls at a council level across the catchment, as a method of dealing with stormwater pollution. Keogh showed examples in Sydney and other cities, where stormwater had been turned into a local feature. The wetland and ‘Water Falls‘ installation at Sydney Park.

The event culminated in the unanimous support for a ‘resolution’ that “the NSW Government should lead the revitalisation of the Cooks River catchment by naturalising the steel and concrete riverbanks and legislating to improve the water quality.”

The community forum was an initiative of the ‘Community Collective,’ a collaboration across community groups, including: Cooks River Valley Association, Protect Wolli Creek Valley, The Mudcrabs, Cooks River Initiative to Transform the Riverbank (CRITR), Marrickville Golf, IWEG – Inner West Environment Group, WalkSydney, Inner West Bicycle Coalition, The Mullets, The River Canoe Club and many more.

Read Mark Skelsey’s write up in ‘Changing Sydney’ here.

Photos: Andreas Ludwig, Noiland Photography