OPINION: The report in the Daily News of December 5 concerning the proposed ecopark development in the Bluff’s Van Riebeeck Park area would be welcome news, if it was not so flagrantly divorced from reality.
Hailed as a “restoration”, what is happening on the site is misguided environmental destruction. Here’s why:
* Originally the site was a landfill. As such it contains vast amounts of non-biodegradable material including medical waste buried up to seven metres below the surface. As such, it is quite unsuitable for a water basin or water feature.
* The clay sourced from the old Clairwood Racecourse is itself contaminated and will not provide an insulation barrier to hold water. That is a natural process which takes decades of compacting.
* Storm water is expected to fill the proposed basin. Such water contains a multitude of unhealthy elements including sewage. Given the limited stormwater run-off from the nearest street, Garcin Place, the proposed water feature would amount to little more than a mud bath in which mosquitoes would thrive.
* Reference to the conservation of indigenous plants and ecosystems housing chameleons is difficult to credit. Pay loaders and bulldozers operate without supervision. Besides, chameleons are highly territorial. Relocating them is not only disruptive to their solitary life habits, but may be fatal to them.
* Adjacent to the proposed park are the Bluff Show Grounds. They have been neglected by the relevant council department and vandalised. It is difficult to appreciate why a new development is being undertaken when the existing, adjoining park has become derelict through lack of maintenance.
As the report states, this so-called project is nothing more than an opportunistic spin-off from the development of the former Clairwood Racecourse. In that vast amounts of clay had to be disposed of, the Bluff valley was seen as a convenient dumping site.
Besides the impractical location of the proposed park, other questions concern budget details and where and how the hills of excavated top soil will be disposed of. On those and the above concerns, there is a distinct lack of transparency and accountability.
Historically, the Bluff valley was a wetland. Only by minimising the human footprint could “restoration” occur to a limited degree.