Why should Sydney put up with turd world water quality?
Sydney Loves Fishing is calling on the NSW Environment Minister Mark Speakman to clean up his act when it comes to water pollution.
Under the Hawkesbury Bioregion Plan that is currently being considered by the government, the Minister and his Department are preparing to lock out anglers from popular recreational fisheries around Sydney, but nothing is being done about the enormous threats to our marine environment and public health: massive amounts of untreated sewage and pollution entering our waterways.
 Nothing has changed since 2013 when Barry O’Farrell's government allowed treatment plants to be put on "bypass". Bypassing means wastewater from homes and businesses that is supposed to be treated at a high level was either released untreated into the ocean, or only partially treated.
The result is that millions of litres of sub-standard wastewater is released off Sydney's coast every year and there has been a steady rise in partially treated discharges.
Even the divers who are calling for more lock-outs of recreational fishers are complaining. Dave Thomas, founder of marine conservation group Eco Divers, said it was alarming to think that “We should be getting cleaner and better – not going the other way.”
While the NSW north coast battles the influx of man-eating sharks, the Hawkesbury Bioregion’s waters now face an invasion of turds.
Here's a map of Sydney beach water quality, as published last week by the Daily Telegraph . It shows the results of the Minister Speakman's own department's annual "State of the Beaches" report. It's a disgrace, it's a health threat to all of us and it's a far more urgent thing to tackle than locking out Sydney's regulation-abiding recreational fishers
Next time you hear someone in government or so-called conservation groups call for restrictions on recreational fishing, ask them what they are doing about the real threats to our marine life.
You can email the relevant Ministers your thoughts on these links:
Environment Minister Mark Speakman
Fisheries Minister Niall Blair
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