FOR MANY, a highway being built near your property is something not particularly celebrated. Yet for Maida Bugg, the Urunga bypass construction has not only been tolerated, but welcomed.
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Maida is well-known within the community for her support of the highway upgrade, and she is adamant the project brings overwhelming benefits to locals and travellers alike.
But now the role of cheering-from-the-sidelines will be reinforced by tangible actions.
Maida has offered to store tree stumps that have been removed for Roads and Maritime Services (RMS) at her property on South Arm Rd. These stumps are to be stockpiled and used for riverbank stabilisation projects, including those along the Kalang.
“So far there are 17 stumps piled up ready to be used in the project,” Maida told the Courier-Sun.
“The use of tree stumps to stabilise river banks is relatively low cost and an effective way of recycling woody material, which otherwise would be a waste product from Urunga bypass development sites. It’s a win-win situation.”
Strategic stockpiling of recycled tree stumps and timber pins from highway clearing is a project jointly funded by the State’s Estuary program and administered by Office of Environment and Heritage.
John Schmidt is the coast and estuary officer who coordinated and organised the woody material to Maida’s farmland.
“Bank erosion is pretty common on estuaries of the North Coast,” John said.
“Estuary health is driven largely by catchment health, and healthy streamside vegetation goes a long way towards keeping intact the catchment framework that protects the long term health of our waterways.”
John said that the Valley’s rich alluvial floodplain soils were kept i tact by dense fringing streamside vegetation whose root systems reinforced the foreshore.
“Erosion is largely as a consequence of having lost much of the foreshore vegetation from clearing commenced with early explorers and settlers in the mid 1800s when these valleys were being explored for cedar and then settled for dairying and beef,” he said.
Maida said her role in the environmental initiative was something that “makes sense”.
“Both Lend Lease and RMS have supported and contributed to costs associated with providing this stockpile and we need to acknowledge their help in providing for the good health of the Kalang River,” she said.
The use of stumps to reduce the loss of land and sediment disruption from floods, wind and wave forces from boats has been used along rivers, such as the Bega River estuary with great success.