Advocacy member, Julie Werner has being doing some backgrounding for to-morrow's walk along the Yarrow Trail to the Nerrina Wetlands. For details of where and when to meet, please go here.
Anyone who grew up near water whether it was a
creek, a river, a dam or a lake has spent time trying to catch insects, small
fish or tadpoles. Over time our society
has not respected our precious water courses and we seem to have spent time
doing everything we can to tame them.
This is true for the Yarrowee River who has its head waters close to
Ballarat East. This important water way
is the one that parts of our city are built on, literally.
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The painting is by Eugene von Guerard.
In the background is Mount Warrenheip.
In the foreground, are headwaters of the Yarrowee River.
The Growling Grass Frog is a native of the Nerrina Wetlands.
To find out more please go here and here.
A lot of work has been done to clean up our River
and a plan was developed a number of years ago which allows us to enjoy the
river now. In the 30 years since Brian
Simpson and a friend started clearing weeds along the river nearly 80 community
groups, including 30 schools, have helped resuscitate the river.
Mr Noyce, an environmentalist says in one article
“For 150 years, the Yarrowee River had been treated as a stormwater drain but,
when the Gnarr Creek flooded in the 1980s, a slow water management plan was
introduced including a soft engineering approach where the use of the
environment controlled storm water,''
He goes on to say. “Soft engineering takes the
energy out of the water, which is captured and then run through growth
pollutant plants before being held in a lagoon for three days and slowly released. If the Yarrowee River master plan had not
been implemented, future generations would be forced to undertake a reactive
approach to management, rather than the present proactive program. We are looking at the historic fabric of the
river, the indigenous plant community and also the non-wanted species.''
Since the introduction of the plan, five major new
parks have been created along the Yarrowee - Gong Gong Reservoir Park, Nerrina
Park and Wetlands, the Yarrowee Flora Reserve, Yarrowee-Redan Reserve and the
Yuille Station Park and Wetlands.
Yuille Station Park and Wetlands
off Vickers Road, Sebastopol
Since 1999, the City of Ballarat has constructed
seven wetlands. These projects provide better regulation of run-off and allow
retention to reduce flooding. The greatest threat to lakes, rivers and streams
is pollutants, litter, nutrients and sediments.
Wetlands with appropriate litter traps and riparian
plant communities can provide a natural and sustainable method of regulating
such inflows and protecting water quality. The establishment of shallow
protected waters separate from the lakes and rivers provides an appropriate
habitat for a desirable range of native birds and flora.
The Linear Network of Community Spaces Group’s
vision is one of the green threads radiating out from Ballarat's urban
environment and connecting to natural areas and features. They offer the following historical
perspective of Ballarat’s River.
The word Yarrowee was thought to be from the early
settlers' use of the Scottish ``Yarrow'', a diminutive to describe smaller
streams.
One of the earliest references to the Yarrowee was
when author Withers, in his History of Ballarat states, with respect to
pre-gold Ballarat: ``Mr Henry Anderson, who was the earliest pioneer in
what is now known as Winter's Flat,
plated his homestead near the delta formed by the confluence of the Woolshed Creek and the Yarrowee.''
In the driest of the early summers, squatters used
to find permanent waterholes at the junction of the Gong Gong and Yarrowee, or
Blakeney's Creek as it was then known, after an early settler.
The Yarrowee was described in 1851 as being a
``clear running creek three to four yards wide, with wide grassy alluvial
flats. It has also been described as the ``rivulet Yarrowee'' and ``the little
river that ran through the Ballarat diggings''.
According to Ballarat historian Peter Butters,
geologically speaking, the Yarrowee has also been referred to as a marginal
stream.
The discovery of gold altered the tranquility of
the Yarrowee and introduced pollution. In researching the Yarrowee, Mr Butters
found information about the river during the 1850s gold rush stating ``the green
banks of the Yarrowee were lined with tubs and cradles, its clear waters were
changed to liquid yellow as the yellowest Tiber flood, and its banks grew to be
long shoals of tailing.''
Professor Weston Bate's book Lucky City says that, in 1883, ``the infamous drain that ran down Sturt
That once-beautiful stream was becoming a sewer.
Older residents of Ballarat can still recall the extent of pollution in the Yarrowee in the early 1930s.
Blood from the meatworks in Skipton St flowed under
the street and then entered the water as an open drain and mixed with the
blue-coloured run-off from the woollen mill, the two pollutants merging and
turning the Yarrowee's water purple.
In more recent years, Mr Butter writes, the
Yarrowee had become a dumping ground for all kinds of refuse, including
shopping trollies and assorted rubbish. Thanks
to the works being undertaken by the Linear Network of Communal Spaces (LINCS),
the future of the Yarrowee looks much brighter.
Nerrina Wetlands - Brown Hill
The Brown Hill and Ballarat East end of the river
was used as a rubbish dump by some people but it was not nearly as bad as the
end down near Sebastopol. The VictorianWaterway Management Strategy was developed some time ago and the CorangamiteCatchment Management Authority has been managing an initiative to further
improve the river. There have been
artificial ponds established in the Brown Hill wetland to assist with flood
mitigation. The removal of invasive
weeds, particularly willows, blackberries, hawthorn and gorse, remains an
ongoing problem.
The wide variety of birdlife in the Nerrina Wetland
remains a big drawcard for birdwatchers to visit our city
Leith Street, Redan, Ballarat - 2011
