The carpark cranks at MEMA and the NSW DPI now celebrate three Tallow Creek fish kills in four years. This amounts to five blackwater events since the marine park was mandated to ‘protect’ the Tallow Creek Special Purpose Zone in 2006.
Throw in a bunch of ownership failures that are penned into Byron Council’s Tallow Creek Floodplain Management Plan 2009. A management regime that’s enjoyed four fish kills in its seven years. Collectively crowning Tallow Creek with the most frequent fish kills of any marine park-owned ICOLL in NSW.
The social engineers at MEMA and the NSW DPI have been provided with at least five formal submissions from Byron’s locally endorsed recreational fishing leaders about the toxic state of Tallow Creek. One for each blackwater event. Despite local fishos proposing the controlled trial of an ecologically advantageous fuse height amendment to mitigate the public asset slaughters at Tallow Creek, these representations are buried. Buried alongside the ‘protected’ remains of critically endangered colonies of Mitchell’s Rainforest Snail.
Ministerial marine park determinations have conveniently excluded Tallow Creek. Instead, local stakeholders were cranked with a stacked 2014–2018 advisory committee and the implementation of a Cape Byron Sanctuary Zone based on ‘… an increasing risk of increased competition with other users (principally surfers) for access (parking)’.
Dan Bode, Byron Bay
