Enjoy swimming this summer but keep an eye out for blue-green algae echo.net.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from echo.net.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Subscriber only An aquatic vet has criticised the dredging works at Shaws Bay, saying it destroyed an important patch of seagrass in the Richmond River in order to create a new beach. Matt Landos, an associate researcher at Sydney University and adjunct senior lecturer at Charles Sturt University, said the seagrass was an important part of the aquatic environment. Seagrass acts as an underwater forest, allowing small crustaceans and other animals to live protected. We ve lost a significant amount of seagrass, a natural resource that is exotic and fascinating, he said. You could say it wasn t natural in Shaws Bay, because it is a man-made bay, but over time the seagrass found a place to survive in the river, and if you walk via the edge in Compton Drive and go where they have installed the new ramp, you will see that the sea grass has been covered up with sand, he said.
Life s (not) a beach: Council criticised for Shaws Bay work northernstar.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from northernstar.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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Subscriber only A new beach at Pop Denison Reserve is one of the outcomes of the dredging works completed last December at Shaws Bay in East Ballina. But monitoring the area s ecological recovery is also an important part of the project. Kerri Watts, Manager Public and Environmental Health at Ballina Shire Council, said the new beach does not have a name yet. We call it East beach, she said. It s a large area where a lot of sand and dredged material has been placed. It s quite a large beach.
Photos She said while Pop Denison Reserve offers picnic facilities and a new accessible barbecue, the new beach offers a more natural experience to visitors.