Thursday 9 October 2008

Drain shame

Molly is a dirty woman. Well, not like that, but lately she's been doing some genuine muck-raking.

Molly is a CairnsBlog informant. Last seen active in the depths of the March local body election, she's again donned her long black coat, sunnies and rubber gloves.

"Take a stroll along Fearnley Creek drain, starting from Juniors Football Club," Molly says.

"This ditch is the drain overflow. Heavy equipment was moved in a while ago to clear vegetation. Left behind you can see the rusty remains of shopping trolleys that have been there for months," she says.

Found in the near empty drain bed are stubby and bottles, tins, cans, shoes, thongs, plastic bottles and bags, spray cans, pieces of wood, broken glass, a bike tyre, and other general rubbish, most are still there after Council work.

This mess does not go out with the tide and needs regular upkeep as most of the time it remains empty of water.

A bicycle path runs alongside this eyesore and you will see that in one spot there is a ‘step’ where a section of the concrete has subsided.

On to the bridge across Fearnley Creek drain proper; corners of thick metal used to patch broken concrete stick up or are dinted down beneath the spikes of the wire fencing.

The visible contents of Fearnley Creek itself are a large piece of bubble wrap and a number of shopping carts, about eight, that have also been there for some considerable time and have not gone out with the tide. Low tide reveals more garbage.

At the end of the bridge there used to be a railing to stop cyclists and pedestrians dropping off the bridge and into the road. This was vandalised some time back and a useless piece of council orange hazard netting has been put up. Not good enough.

Children walk and ride to Parramatta school along here. Mothers with pushers and toddlers use this access to the school daily.

Not only is this unsightly, it is environmental abuse and a danger to cyclists and the many little feet that use the area. It seems that our Council has been by again, some time back and added patches of hot pink here and there, but have never returned.

Catch Molly's new feature short film, 'Fearnley Fuckup', she was chief script writer and editor, out now in all good Blogs. And drains.



1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I am pleased to report that the six or seven shopping trollys having group sex in the main section of the drain were removed within hours of this blog being posted. The remaining mating pairs and the piece of bubblewrap have been removed today.
No idea if this was a shopping centre or council initiative. Thank you to who ever it was but now is is over to council for cleanup and repairs. I will keep you posted.