News and Events June 2018
New Shoal Bay Playground Under Construction
Attached a couple of photos of the new playground currently being installed at Bernie Thompson Park.
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The fencing, landscaping and the timber elements have been chosen to match the treed setting of the park. The sandstone logs
will be used for informal seating to match the barrier works used for the adjacent carpark.
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The estimated completion of the works will be mid July 2018.
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Note: The bike rack in front of Aura should be replaced soon as PSC has just poured the concrete footings for the rack.
Container spill on beaches off Port Stephens
Zenith, Wreck and Box Beach clean up
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Coordinated by Shoal Bay Community Association members, on the weekend of 2 & 3 June, locals and tourists pitched in despite the weekend’s wet conditions to collect and bag plastic items washed up on local beach.
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Tim Meharg, chairman of the Association said visitors from Spain, Tasmania, Brisbane, Sydney and Newcastle joined local volunteers at Zenith beach to collect plastic jars, food packets, clocks and other assorted debris.
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The rubbish was placed in plastic bags, carried to the car park and stacked near a council bin for collection.
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"I daresay more will be washed up,” Mr Meharg said.
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“We couldn’t wait for an official clean-up because a lot of this stuff could finish up in the gullet of fish mistaking it for food. “The more collected earlier the better."
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Chairman of the Marine Parks Association, Frank Future, echoed this sentiment on Monday.
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He said the local community could not wait for the ship’s operator to deal with the recovery and removal of the lost cargo. “These things take an enormous amount of time and by then it might be months, even years,” “It will be the community who will rally to clean it up.”
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Mr Future said the majority of debris washed ashore so far was plastic, which posed two major issues for the local waterways.
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These plastics pose a risk to marine life, such as the local turtle population. Turtles often mistake plastic for jellyfish, a main food source, and ingest the pollutant. “I suspect over the next week to a month, other containers will wash ashore and who knows what is in them.”
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