Advertiser, 4 March 2009

To the Editor:

As I watch vast clouds of windblown sand billow across the exposed lake bed towards my home, one thing is very clear to me.

Those who argue against opening the barrages to let seawater take its natural place are arguing in support of the environmental disaster that is happening out there right now – because there are no other alternatives.

The seawater remedy is available immediately but without it conditions will worsen as water levels continue to fall and this dry dead windblown wasteland will become even larger.

To claim to be protecting a wetland environment which no longer exists is a nonsense. A healthy estuarine wetland could be established tomorrow – different, but not dead - and definitely much better for everyone than this disastrous alternative.

[name withheld]