Letter to the Editor: Health of the Wilson Inlet

After 40 years of pulling nets off the bottom of the Wilson inlet, I have never seen the inlet so dirty.

Whether it’s green slime, red slime or black ooze it’s pretty obvious the inlet has too much nutrient buildup and is not getting the interchange of water it needs.

Regardless of whatever spin you put on it, be it the high sea levels or high tides, it’s just not getting flushed out enough.

We can’t expect water to flow over a shallow sand delta and have a draining effect on the inlet.

I have owned and operated an aquaculture farm for 10 years in the past, so I understand the importance of water temperature, salinity, nitrates and nitrites.

Dredging would be costly and ongoing maintenance to stop it from silting would add more expense.

Any expert will tell you the best place to build a channel is the shortest distance between deep water and deep water.

So I suggest we remove the man-made sand dunes on the end of the peninsula that was put there years ago and open it from the snapper hole straight through to the ocean, approximately 6-7 hundred meters from the cliff.

It has always been deeper there and there will still be a channel to swim in.

I know there was computer modelling done years ago but I believe the figures were questionable and not very transparent.

Prawn Rock Channel is a great tourist attraction and the proposed toilets for that area are well overdue.

Who knows if the eastern channel were to happen perhaps an engineer may come up with a way to get water connected to the Prawn Rock Channel area.

However, while the main focus is always on a cliff opening and Prawn Rock Channel, the health of Wilson Inlet will always keep deteriorating and be on a knife edge.

Greg Marchant, Denmark