Resident forms action group to help save lake

Updated November 7 2012 - 11:59am, first published May 10 2009 - 11:28pm

A FRIENDS of the Lake group is being formed to mount more pressure on authorities to restore healthy water levels to Wagga’s Lake Albert.The move is being led by Eastlake Drive resident Robert Lazzarini.A table will be set up at the Wagga Boat Club tomorrow from 10am during the Barry Carne High and Dry event for people to sign up to the new group.Mr Lazzarini has distributed about 200 letters to Lake Albert residents outlining his concerns about the lake’s poor state and why he believes its water level has dropped from an average 3.2 metres to just 600 millimetres.He said a Friends of the Lake group that had 300 or 400 members would have clout when it came to lobbying government for more action to improve the lake.“I want to be able to talk to ministers, and to do that I have to be more than a solo voice,” Mr Lazzarini said.He said there would be no joining fee for the proposed group.In his letter to residents, Mr Lazzarini says Wagga City Council suddenly switched direction in February by dropping plans to seek $2 million from the Federal Government for environmental and recreational works at the lake, and instead included some of the work in an overall water submission “as an attachment to a previously failed Riverside Wagga Wagga application.”Mr Lazzarini asks why a 50mm rain episode in November, 2005, filled the lake in a matter of days but similar events in December, 2007, and January, 2008, had no effect. “Is it dams, either legal or illegal, in the catchment areas or is it diversions to prevent flow into the lake from potentially toxic sites, or is it some other reason of which we are not aware?” he asks.“Clearly, council must provide ratepayers with a signed engineer’s report which could withstand forensic examination in the courts, to support their claim or provide the reason for the disappeared water inflows.”Mr Lazzarini says in his letter that as the lake shrunk so did the value of surrounding properties.“Given the number of properties in the Lake Albert/Lakeside/Lakehaven precincts that will have their value reduced by at least 10, if not up to 20 per cent, the losses will be in the tens of millions of dollars,” he says.“It is critical that councillors become fully aware of community concern given the apparent determination of this council to allow the lake to become a swamp.”

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