CITY OF RYDE NEWS

PUTNEY BEACH IS NOW OPEN FOR SWIMMING
Our Society president, Frank Breen, has been an active committee member of the Parramatta River Catchment Group (PRCG) for many years. A key aim of the PRCG is to make the Parramatta River safe for swimming by 2025. Various swimming sites have already opened, and at Putney Park the opening ceremony was on Wednesday 22 January 2025. It was attended by most City of Ryde councillors, local members of parliament and a crowd of local adults and children who welcomed the opportunity to swim at a local natural area.


RHHFFPS committee members Phillip, Frank and Lyn. Some councillors and our MP for Ryde are in this second photo. [Photos provided by Lyn Langtry]
The PRCG and City of Ryde are to be congratulated on the opening of the safe swimming area at Putney Park. More are coming, with work now in progress at Bedlam Bay.

CITY OF RYDE ENVIRONMENTAL CITIZEN OF THE YEAR 2025
Adding to the awards of Citizen and Young Citizen of the Year, for 2025 the City of Ryde Council inaugurated two new awards: “Sportsperson of the Year” and “Environmental Citizen of the Year”.
We are pleased, and consider it very appropriate, that Society member Pamela Ward is first to be recognised with this new award.

In 1988 Pam joined our committee and until 2010 served in various roles including secretary, newsletter editor and membership officer. During this time, she joined the City of Ryde Bushcare Program and worked with others on sites within the Field of Mars Reserve. Over the past ten years Pam has been the site supervisor at the Cemetery Creek 2 Bushcare Site within the Reserve, where she continues to work 3 hours every week, weather permitting.

In 2012 and after five years of negotiations, The Habitat Community Native and food plant Nursery & Community Food Garden commenced operating on its site at 251 Quarry Rd, Ryde, adjacent to Santa Rosa Park. This was achieved together with fellow Society member Bev Debrincat, who now lives within the Municipality of Hunter’s Hill - so ineligible to be considered for a City of Ryde award. The Habitat has operated continuously from 2012 to the present, with the community gardens always accessible, and the nursery section open to the public two days every week.
Pam encourages and involves school students, scouts and groups of people with disabilities in activities including planting native and food plants and undertaking community service. She monitors and assesses school students who come to The Habitat to undertake service for their Duke of Edinburgh Awards. Pam encourages and supervises groups of people with disabilities who visit and carry out appropriate tasks at The Habitat.
Additionally, she brings plants and displays to promote environmental awareness at community events including Granny Smith Festival and events organised by our Society.
At the presentation ceremony, 2024 Ryde Citizen of the Year Lyn Mann (Society member and East Ryde Joey Scout Leader, among other things) spoke of how the award inspired her to keep doing all that she does. The special Environmental Citizen of the Year award will hopefully encourage and inspire many others to be proactive in preserving and nurturing our natural environments.

NEWS FROM THE NTA

[“PFAS” are polyfluoroalkyl substances, a group of synthetic chemicals resistant to heat, water, grease and oil. They are also called "forever chemicals" because they do not break down.]
Here are the latest updates on PFAS and microplastics in synthetic turf. These reports and articles offer critical insights into the associated health risks and environmental impacts.
1. Health Risks of PFAS and Synthetic Turf
NTA prepared a detailed report examining the health risks posed by PFAS in synthetic turf, including results from recent local PFAS testing. Access the NTA Report
2. UTS Final Report on the Chemical Composition of Synthetic Turf (2022)
This comprehensive study by the University of Technology Sydney provides valuable data on the chemical composition of synthetic turf and its implications. Read the UTS Report
3. PFAS and Microplastics: A Growing Toxic Threat
An investigative report from The Guardian sheds light on the toxic risks posed by PFAS and microplastics in synthetic fields and broader environments. Read the Article from The Guardian
4. Whistleblower Advocacy for Scientific Integrity
This insightful piece explores the journey of Dr Kyla Bennett, a US based whistleblower advocating for scientific integrity in reporting PFAS and microplastics' environmental effects. Read the Article
5. PFAS in the Environment: PFOA More Widespread Than Expected
A new report reveals how PFAS chemicals, particularly PFOA, transform in the environment, leading to its presence being more widespread than previously understood. The study underscores the urgent need for improved environmental monitoring and action to address this growing issue. Read the Article from ABC News
These findings highlight the urgent need to promote safer, natural alternatives to synthetic turf and engage in policy discussions. NTA encourages all members to share these resources with their networks and contribute to advocacy efforts.
RECENT DEVELOPMENTS show pressing environmental and health concerns associated with synthetic playing fields, particularly regarding microplastics and PFAS pollution…
1. Letter from Minister Penny Sharpe on Plastic Pollution
While the NSW Government has taken steps to address plastic pollution through the Plastics Reduction and Circular Economy Act 2021, the measures largely focus on single-use plastics, with no acknowledgment of the significant issue of microplastic pollution caused by synthetic turf blades. This is a glaring omission, as synthetic field plastic waste continues to pose severe risks to our environment. Access Minister Sharpe's letter
2. Microplastics and Human Health - Emerging Evidence
A recent meta-analysis continues to highlight the alarming connection between microplastics and severe health concerns, including links to lung and colon cancer. These findings emphasize the long-term consequences of microplastic pollution on human health and ecosystems.
Read the Meta-analysis report / Read the Sydney Morning Herald article on the report
3. Federal and NSW PFAS Enquiries - Updates
NTA submitted recommendations to both the NSW Select Committee on PFAS Contamination and the Federal Parliament Select Committee on PFAS.
Link to the Federal Government Enquiry webpage
Link to the NSW State Government Enquiry webpage
Synthetic fields and their associated pollution continue to be a critical issue.

GARDENS OF STONE COAL MINING UPDATE - Report received 10 January 2025
Thompsons Creek discharge

Centennial has admitted that this discharge from Thompsons Creek Reservoir into the water supply catchment contains a shandy of waste from Angus Place and Springvale mines.
Coal mine proposals in the Gardens of Stone State Conservation Area are legend and complex.
Key proposals for 2025 seek approvals to reintroduce disposal of huge volumes of mine waste into Sydney’s main drinking water supply, coupled with many changes to coal mining plans through a consent modification process (mods for short).

Image- C. Jonkers
Over the last couple of years poor handling of mine wastewater has made this large problem worse through its storage in underground mine workings. To rid itself of this mess, Centennial Coal proposes to pump from Angus Place mine a giant underground lake of pollution, about 5GL in size and full of metal salts, into a headwater tributary of the Coxs River.
Centennial Coal recently alleged that from the outset the $200M Springvale Water Treatment Plant (SWTP) failed to deliver a promised zero mine waste release system. Allegedly the SWTP instead secretly pumped partly treated mine waste into Thompsons Creek Reservoir and from there discharged it at between 550 – 700EC salinity into Sydney’s drinking water catchment at a rate of between 0.8 and 18ML/day. These discharges are described by Energy Australia as environmental flows. Luckily some dodgy proposals were withdrawn, as the Independent Planning Commission saw through what Centennial was trying to do. Now the scale of this pollution mess is revealed, with approvals sought to deal with over 50ML of mine waste generated, every day!
These new plans to dump mine waste into Sydney’s water supplies can happen because a previous NSW Government weakened protection laws to overturn a 2017 NSW Supreme Court ruling preventing this sort of pollution. The Minns Government should now legislate to protect water supplies from mine pollution and fix this mega pollution mess.
Eight proposals to change mine approvals in the Gardens of Stone region are expected to go on public exhibition for comment in 2025. During this mine proposal onslaught, it is important for everyone to campaign for protection of Sydney’s water supplies, the World Heritage Area, upland swamps and pagoda landscapes. Centennial is banking on crashing through democratic process.
Estimated timeline for coal mine proposals in the Gardens of Stone
•SWTP Mod 11 seeks to allow for major Mt Piper Power Plant maintenance work this year. This mod proposes to send a shandy of mine waste water to Thompsons Creek Reservoir at a rate of 42ML/day and hence into the Sydney’s drinking water supply at a target discharge salinity of 600EC – mod exhibition January 2025.
•SWTP Mod 12, with Angus Place mod 10 and Western Coal Services Mod 7 seeks to dump a different mine waste shandy at a rate of 26.5ML/day into Wangcol Creek at 700EC and hence into Sydney’s water supplies - EBPC referral January or February 2025, mod exhibition 2nd quarter 2025.
•Angus Place Mod 9 seeks to extend the mine consent period to allow the above to continue – going to IPC February 2025.
8•Angus Place West mine extension threatens swamps in the Coxs River headwaters - EIS exhibition 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2025.
•Springvale mine longwalls 501, 502, 503 – extraction plan to be lodged in 2026 would crack pagoda formations and drain a swamp.
•Springvale West is a new mining proposal at a lower coal mining intensity on Newnes Plateau above Sawyers Swamp Creek with an EPBC referral expected in the 2nd quarter of 2025 and EIS in the last quarter 2027.
•Clarence 918/920 extraction plan – in response to greater than predicted ground surface subsidence, this is a revised plan that seeks confirmation of the reintroduction of longwall mining machines after decades of successful lower intensity coal mining. In response to unacceptable subsidence, it is proposed to require longwall machinery used in shortwalls to avoid certain swamps and instead require partial pillar extraction under swamp areas. EPBC referral 2nd quarter 2025.
•Clarence DA 504 mining area Mod 11 seeks a 5 year mining consent extension to 31 December 2031 and also seeks to use coal wash from this mine to cap a toxic fly ash mess from Wallerawang Power Plant at Sawyers Swamp Creek. Mod exhibition in 2nd quarter 2025.
•Clarence mine extension Mod 8 of DA504 mining area due for EPBC referral exhibition in 2nd quarter of 2025 and Mod exhibition 3rd quarter of 2025. This Mod should be a separate EIS, as it covers a 400ha mine proposal area using an existing consent. Mod 8 also includes a pipeline extension from Clarence colliery to Wallerawang to transfer mine waste water under a Pollution Reduction Program. The pipe is to enable Lithgow City to continue use of mine waste in its drinking water supply once Farmers Creek dam is decommissioned. The drained and decommissioned storage dam will reveal a sediment filled wasteland and there are no plans to restore this mess.
•A new development application for Clarence Colliery integrating multiple approvals will seek permission for another 25 years coal mining, i.e. to 2053 – EPBC referral 2nd quarter 2025, EIS 2nd quarter 2028.
•Airly Mine - where the final extraction plan for the last 4 longwalls (minwalls) is due at end of 2025 - early 2026.
These complicated and varied proposals will no doubt fall behind schedule from what’s described here. For more information on this mega mining mess follow all updates from members of the Gardens of Stone Alliance - Lithgow Environment Group, Blue Mountains Conservation Society, Wilderness Australia, Nature Conservation Council of NSW and National Parks Association of NSW.

THE NOT-SO-GREAT KOALA NATIONAL PARK
Editor’s note: Environmentally-minded voters were heartened by the promise of a Great Koala National Park but, two years later, nothing has happened except accelerated logging activities and increasing amounts of taxpayer money being used to prop up the Forestry Corporation.
A few hundred vocal timber workers are, understandably, trying to maintain their jobs. But these jobs are unsustainable. It’s a pity that all levels and sides of government in Australia cannot learn from countries like in Africa where, with shortages of wealth, they retrain those in wildlife- and environment-destroying industries to be employed to protect their environmental assets.
And those countries now benefit from increased national income and better balances of trade.
Here are two of the recent communications our Society has received about this issue:
1. NATURE CONSERVATION COUNCIL OF NSW

From Steve Ryan, Forests Campaigner: The logging industry is still pushing to reduce the Great Koala National Park. We can't let that happen. Can you make a quick call to your MP for our koalas and forests?
Over 12,000 people signed the letter to Premier Chris Minns calling for the full Great Koala National Park.
Since delivering that huge petition in December… the government is still deciding whether to allow logging to continue in parts of the proposed 176,000 hectare national park.
The logging industry is pressuring for a park only one-third the size of the original proposal.
We need to keep the pressure up on the Minns Government to deliver a full Great Koala National Park with phone calls. Can you make a quick phone call to a member of parliament today?
This year, logging resumed in the spectacular forests of the NSW North Coast.
Which means that every day the government delays, more koala and glider habitat is logged.
Make no mistake: throughout recent history, people power has won protection for hundreds of thousands of hectares of native forest and the precious wildlife that call these forests home. The coming days and months require us to all step up again and be heard.
I know calling an MP can seem a bit intimidating, but it’s actually quick and easy, and we’ve made it as simple as possible for you with talking points and all the details right on our website.
With enough pressure we can make this the year we protect this critical habitat and secure a future for NSW’s koalas.
2. From Sue Higginson, MLA (THE GREENS):
The Minns Labor Government will be making their decision on the Great Koala National Park in the coming days and weeks - I’m worried they will cave to the logging industry.
Instead of the 176,000 hectares of our public forest estate, the corporate loggers have submitted a proposal to NSW Labor for a National Park that only protects 37,000 hectares of our forests - 5 times smaller than what Labor promised.
It has been 2 years since NSW Labor were elected by us on a promise to create the Great Koala National Park, and since then, they have intensified the logging in these precious forests, and pushed Koalas and other threatened species closer to extinction. We cannot allow them to give in again to the logging industry.
10The decision by Labor on our Great Koala National Park is imminent. We need to bring all our pressure to their front door today, tomorrow and next week. That’s why I’m also asking you to call the Premier and Minister for the Environment directly. You can reach them on:
Premier’s contact: 02 7225 6000
Minister for the Environment’s contact: 02 9230 2741
When you call or email, you are telling the Government that they promised us the Great Koala National Park, the one we all understood to be the Great Koala National Park - all 176,000 hectares that we have come to know as the Great Koala National Park. That you are so disappointed that it has taken so long and that they have continued to allow logging in the Park and that if they now go with the loggers and make a smaller Park, they will have betrayed us, koalas and future generations.
We have seen over the last 2 years that the NSW Labor Government will not act unless they are forced to do so. That’s why… the Koalas need you, to call and email the Government today, tell them we need the full park, and full protections from logging - immediately.
Keep calling, keep emailing, don’t give up. This will take all of us to make sure we get the full Great Koala National Park, not the loggers’ version and not just the Labor-lite version.

NEWS FROM THE CLIMATE COUNCIL: SKY NEWS LAUNCHES ON-AIR ATTACK
Sky News used two tricks from the disinformation handbook:
1. Discrediting experts: labelled ‘socialists’ and ‘ignorant leftists’ peddling climate fear - a classic trick to attempt to discredit the person in order to avoid addressing their argument.
2. Cherry picking: Using out-of-context data to create a false association between renewables and last week’s blackout warnings. The facts show that half of NSW’s ageing coal-fired power generators were out of action at the time and that ageing infrastructure is vulnerable during very hot weather.
To set the record straight:
1. The Bureau of Meteorology shows that we’ve just lived through Australia's warmest spring on record.
2. Heatwaves are being hotter, longer and happening more often.
3. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) modelling that tells us that renewables, backed by storage, can provide power 24/7.
4. AEMO also has lots of great information about the increasing unreliability of our coal-fired power stations, including during heatwaves.
Sky News’s attack tells the Climate Council two things about [their] campaign:
1. We’re on the right track - when the people pedalling disinformation feel the need to go on the attack, they think we’re having an impact.
2. This work is super important - the sheer brazenness of the lies we're up against is staggering, and reinforces how critical it is that we set the record straight to stop it sabotaging the climate action we urgently need.

“Funny they never mention that climate change is driving hotter, longer heat waves… putting pressure on our ageing energy system.” – Climate Council