I am challenged. I am full of questions. I face my ignorance, but I seek dialogue, feedback and clarity. Sociologically and ecologically, the phrase, ‘it’s not “either/or” that is the argument, but “also”.’
The ‘also’ has always knocked on the door of my psyche. I am eternally fascinated by the thrust of questions that whirl in my childlike ignorant world. I was raised in SA. I lived on the beaches that appeared on ABC TVs Four Corners’ program. So folks, bear with me as I share.
I watched Four Corners this past Monday. The subject was the ongoing algae bloom in South Australia, which continues on its lethal journey along the South Australian coast.
It leaves in its wake thousands of dead ocean creatures along the coast.
Many businesses and fishing industries face uncertain future survival, as industries are affected by the dangers inherit in eating poisoned food.
We learned that many humans have inherited dire effects stemming from the algae bloom.
We are assured that it is the result of climate change. This I do not challenge. Humans and other sentient beings have developed Brevatoxins that impact upon the brain, respiratory system, guts, eyes and skin.
The poison is so lethal that it lives in the actual air.
But I was bought to tears by the sight of kangaroos dying on the seashore. They gather to eat the grasses that grow on the shoreline.
These grasses are washed by the ocean.
Questions arose: ‘Are we witnessing generational horrors, such that future generations of sentient life will have to face?’
Are Brevatoxins capable of creating DNA mutations? Is there an actual poison that thrives and lives within this total dynamic?
As my mind wandered, the great River Murray seemed to speak to me.
Coming from a very large black Irish family, I spent much of my youth with relatives who had orchards in Renmark, SA. The River Murray watered these orchards.
There were channels and rivers that we kids swam in. l learned that river water was not like ocean water.
I was fearful of drowning as the sea-water offered buoyancy.
Never during the 1950s until now (2026) had I heard of any historical lethal poisonous bloom.
As we know, the River Murray flows into the sea. I rang my cousin. ‘Harri’, I asked, ‘Do you think that the River Murray is emptying huge accumulations of farmland poisonous pesticides into the ocean?’
She then explained to me that she was on a Facebook group.
Many minds involved in the phenomenon.
‘Research from satellites reveal that this water is powerful and it is thrust a huge distance from shore-lines’.
‘In pipes?’ I queried. ‘No, satellites reveal the force of the water’, Harri stated. ‘But it is water… and water spreads’. I continued with insistence. Lost in a world of ‘but also’ logic!
I now ask: Has corporate power maintained the control of dialogues pertaining to lethal pesticides in the current situation?
First Nation minds and scientists please share. Let us not pass this poisonous chalice to future sentient beings.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
