Blockade in Melbourne's water catchments enters second day
by Julia Dehm Friday October 20, 2006 at 04:19 PM
juliadehm@yahoo.com

Twenty activists are continuing to lock down machinery and stop logging in the headwaters of the catchment feeding the Blue Rock Dam, earmarked by the Bracks government to be Melbourne’s next water supply catchment.

Twenty activists are continuing to lock down machinery and stop logging in the headwaters of the catchment feeding the Blue Rock Dam, earmarked by the Bracks government to be Melbourne’s next water supply catchment.

Two people are locked to machinery and one person is in a tree sit. Police and Department of Sustainability and the Environment Officers have arrived and forced the support crew to leave.

The planned logging is happening in our newest water supply catchment in the Central Highlands. Protests spokespwerson Lauren Caufield said “Victoria is facing its worst ever drought and Melbourne is in a water crisis. One of the solutions touted by the Bracks government is to connect the Blue Rock Dam to Melbourne’s water supply grid, yet we are logging its catchment.”

“Its madness, while Melbourne Water tells us that ‘every drop counts’ ordinary Victorians must put their bodies on the line to stop logging in water catchments” she said.

Logging reduces water supplies by up to fifty percent and over half of Melbourne’s water is already coming from logged catchments

The area also contains old growth forest, habitat for the Sooty Owl and is a site of Global Zoological Significance for a number of threatened animals including the Baw Baw Frog and the Leadbeaters Possum.

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