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proudly serving Sunbury and Macedon Ranges
1 MARCH, 2022
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SIG N U P N O W!
Talkin’ about the blues
Sherryn and David Keily with their daughters Maddi and Indee.
Sherryn Keily was driving through Western Australia with her family when she started noticing the trees – they were hard to miss, being electric blue. What followed was the discovery of the Blue Tree Project, a nationwide initiative encouraging conversations about mental health. Ms Keily was blown away, and decided to take the project all the way back across the country to her hometown, Riddells Creek. “I’m very passionate about community and in the Macedon Ranges, our numbers of suicide are really high,” Ms Keily said. “People are afraid to talk about how they feel, they feel like they’re going to get judged or they feel like they’re going to be looked at differently. I want to stop that.” Standing tall alongside Riddell Road, the image is striking: blue, leafless branches stretching up into the sky, its trunk surrounded by flowers. “Our goal is to encourage people, if they’ve got a dead tree on their property, grab some blue paint and just paint it, whether it’s visible from the road or not,” Ms Keily said. Macedon Ranges Suicide Prevention Group chair Steven Power said the new blue tree is an “elegant reminder” to have tough talks about mental health and suicide.
(Elsie Lange)
Hi-Quality ready for soil By Elsie Lange Hi-Quality will begin receiving contaminated soil from the West Gate Tunnel project in March, despite an ongoing Hume council Supreme Court challenge and community outrage. Sunbury resident and founder of the Sunbury Against Toxic Soil Facebook group Chris O’Neill said it was a “difficult day” for residents, considering they had “fought
so hard” against the project. “I think Hi-Quality, the government and all the relevant parties need to start engaging better with the community,” Mr O’Neill said. In a statement on Thursday, February 24, Hi-Quality said the first stage of the construction of the facility was complete and ready to accept the soil. “It will operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the duration of tunnel excavation for the West Gate Tunnel Project,”
the statement said. A Hi-Quality spokesperson told Star Weekly the facility has been designed with “robust environmental protection measures”. “To prevent any impact on the surrounding land or waterways, and our operational plans include strict guidelines for trucks and transport, as well on-site mitigation measures for dust, noise and lighting,” the spokesperson said. This follows concern raised last week by
residents and council about the Department of Transport’s approval of a route to carry contaminated soil from to the facility. According to the traffic management plan, prepared by Hi-Quality Group, trucks will take soil from the tunnel project through Footscray to CityLink, before taking the “preferred haulage route” along Tullamarine Freeway to Sunbury Road/Bulla Road. ■
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