Three tales of the same Tweed River

“The Tweed Shire council have funded a report on boat wake and river bank erosion. The report is very misleading, inaccurate and BIAS towards boat wake. The report does not comment about how the natural environment and human kind has an effect on the river banks or even the recent floods on the Tweed!
There is a group called TRAC (Tweed River Awareness Committee) and they have uploaded a website for YOU to have your say to all of the Tweed Shire Councillors! WE NEED to have our say because we are up against a minority group that have do not have anything better to do then voice up and complain!”  howled rubberjohnny. Rather strangely ignoring the fact that this study did take the natural environment into account and definitely looked at flood impact.

Over at tweedriverusers.org an unknown voice was getting all shouty about sneaky bans being just around the corner for Tweed boaties. Mr. Unknown seemed to believe that just because a river erosion study on the NSW South Coast did not identify wave action generated by boats as a problem this applied as a natural law to all Aussie rivers.

Apparently this Tweed River ban will be capable of blinding and strangling water skiers as well – if this pic is to be believed.

Of course Tweed Council is doing little to douse the conspiratorial flames, because the Mayor foolishly tried to play down the fact that recommendations in the Impact of Wake on Tweed River Bank Erosion Study did contain Supplementary Bank Enhancement Measures which listed “Vessel management to restrict boat wake waves” and that council “has oversighted the preparation and implementation of detailed management plans for specific sections of the river and specific issues eg. bank erosion” according to NSW Roads & Maritime Services.

Turn it up, fellas! Any fool can see power boats won't be banned from the river - they'll just have to keep to a 'below hoon' speed and maybe stop towing water skiers in particularly vulberable areas.