Council stung
IN reference to Fremantle council refusing to install a stinger net due to continual rising costs–what rising costs?
A local beach in Cairns has used one for years with very little, if any, maintenance, except for the cost of installation.
It seems the cost far outweighs the safety of swimmers and the excruciating pain from a stinger attack.
Frank Cherry
Elderberry Dve, South Lake

The whole picture
CITY of Fremantle is requesting users of Port and Leighton Beaches to fill in a questionnaire on the Freo Your Say website.
Thank you for that.
Several historical photographs are available to view on the website.
All of the aerial photographs show a wide beach stretching from North Mole to The Cable Station.
The beautiful, simple beach we have all enjoyed most of our lives. Then Rous Head intervened.
Today we have an environmental disaster compliments of Fremantle Port Authority and their greedy failure to make any attempt to stop their pollution migrating north along the coast.
Can the Freo Your Say website please also show the aerial photographs of the decades-long FPA rubbish dump on the waterfront, and the crushed CBH silo materials being washed into the ocean for ten years.
Also, during the 100 years of recording Fremantle’s high water marks, there has been little change.
When the full picture of what has happened at Port Beach is made available to the general public, we will have a starting point to try and salvage this former pristine, simple beach.
Peter McLarty
Bicton

Idea parked
PAUL GAMBLIN appears to be surprised at the lack of any action to convert the old Leighton marshalling yards into a park (“Ebbs and flows”, Thinking Allowed, Herald, February 9, 2019).
I’m one of those who isn’t the least bit surprised.
No doubt governments have looked at the proposition from time to time, and I can only imagine the responsible minister would have called in advice from the relevant government departments.
That might have gone something like this:
• What would it cost to set up? Heaps.
• Maintenance costs? Shedloads. Forever.
• What about offsets from it becoming a tourist attraction? “Build it and they will come” probably wouldn’t apply in this case. The site would be awkward to get to, it would be competing with Cottesloe Beach and Fremantle, and the location is battered by wind and railway noise.
• But what if we encouraged musical acts and food trucks? Considering that balmy, calm evenings are very rare in that location, it’s doubtful any entrepreneurs would be interested.
And there’s another point to be considered: Underused parks are always in danger of being taken over by drunks and druggies.
Time for some other ideas…Social housing?
Name and address supplied

Marine’s a killer
IS this another ill-conceived money grab by the City of Fremantle?
Have they thought through the consequences? Is it the first step in a process that will cost us all more money?
I am talking about the introduction of paid parking on Marine Terrace.
I know that criticising Fremantle council is a very popular sport, that takes little or no skill, but there are times when they deserve it.
The consequences of this move are that the people who park their cars on Marine Terrace will just find somewhere else where they can park free of charge.
The most obvious place being the residential streets off Marine Terrace and South Terrace.
Some will undoubtedly park in the car park adjacent to the entrance to Fremantle Sailing Club, where families park to take their children and dogs to the beach.
There is also Mews Road, on the other side of the railway track from Marine Terrace.
So basically we are looking at increased congestion in the roads adjacent to Marine Terrace.
The majority of the cars that currently park on Marine Terrace belong to people who are going to work to earn a living, and I think in most cases it is a meagre living.
There aren’t many Mercedes or BMW parked there for the day; mostly low budget cars.
Paying $3.50 five days a week, 52 weeks a year, takes about $900 out of their annual income.
For a lot of families that is a sizeable chunk of their budget. Let’s make it easier for people to go to work, not more difficult.
Then there is the knock-on effect. When the residential streets become choked with commuter parking, the locals will want residents-only parking.
Will the council pass on the administrative cost to the residents? When those residents have genuine visitors will they have to pay to park?
When people going to the dog beach in the morning find that the car park by the sailing club is full of commuter cars, will the paid-for-parking then spread to this area as well?
Will taking the family or the dog to the beach gain an added cost?
Fremantle council have you really thought this through?
John Roberson
Fremantle

Deadly sonar?
I READ the report in The Chook about a distressed dolphin found on Coogee beach which had to be put down (“Dolphin put down”, Herald, February 16, 2019).
It was taken for a necrotopsy, but this will not turn up any discovery.
This is because this distressed behaviour, also seen in other fish populations in the area at different times, like the sardines trying to ‘leap out of the water’, is due to sonar interference.
Human beings are also affected by this but not in the same way.
These are very low resonance sound waves being projected into the ocean waters by technological devices we have not officially heard of, but if you read the book by Patricia Cori Before We Leave You, you would understand.
It has been sonar interference which has forced beachings of large pods of dolphins and whales.
These are deaths of cetaceans who have preferred to commit suicide to the torture of having sound fry their brains.
Over the millennia, the sounds of dolphins and whales have been the music of the oceans, keeping the waters in balance. They can no longer do this. Don’t think that this is fantasy.
We must find out how to stop this. We can’t stop what we don’t even know exists, and this local report is at least making us more aware.
The fact that no apparent cause of death can be established after a beaching should be a definite clue.
Carla van Raay
Kirby Street, Willagee

Tell the truth
PRIME minister, will you please stop telling lies and start speaking the truth to the Australian people about the Medevac bill which was passed by the parliament recently?
Stop telling people smugglers that Australia’s border protection is now so compromised that it will be very easy for refugees to come here by boat.
In fact, you have told the whole world that we have now opened a detention centre on Christmas Island especially to accommodate future arrivals by sea.
Please advise Australians that refugees who are transferred to Australia for medical treatment will remain in detention and will be returned to Manus and Nauru once the treatment is completed.
Federal courts have already ordered your government to transfer almost 1000 critically ill refugees from Manus and Nauru for medical treatment at a cost of over $300,000 of taxpayers’ dollars in legal fees during the last financial year.
If transferring refugees to Australia for medical treatment is so catastrophic, why didn’t these transfers restart people smuggling?
You and your ministers insist that 1000 refugees will be coming to Australia for medical treatment, but refuse to tell us how many refugees on Nauru and Manus actually need medical attention.
What we would really like to know is when you are we going to tell us what you plan to do about the findings of the Banking Royal Commission?
Pamela Leeson
Hubert Street, South Fremantle