Western Port
Western Port
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Towering presence
22 October 2013
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Tuesday ay 22 October 2013 201 013 13
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Garden grows from wave of confusion and sympathy THE news from Japan on Friday 11 March 2011 was horrific. An earthquake and tsunami had devastated the north of the country. News reports were full of difficult-to-believe images: cars and boats looked like toys as they were swept along by an unstoppable wall of water; houses collapsed, large buildings shook and the people supposed to be in control – the government – could do no more than express sorrow and amazement. Younger children at Crib Point Primary School confronted by these images had mixed emotions. It was a confusing day. While life went on as usual in the comfort of their regulated school environment, they knew that life would never be the same again for thousands caught up in the disaster almost half a world away. The school’s chaplain Gary Lewis could see the confusion on young faces reacting to an event of almost unimaginable proportions. The horror was so far away and yet, because of modern communications, so close and immediate. To the younger ones it was probably threatening. At Mr Lewis’s invitation, nearly three-quarters of the school’s 150 pupils gathered around the school’s flagpole in silent contemplation. The moving, ad hoc ceremony spurred discussions about the need for the school to have an area set aside for deeper thoughts. Last Friday, children were planting their own Remembrance Garden in readiness for Monday 11 November – Remembrance Day. The centrepiece of the garden is a one-tonne anchor donated by DMS Maritime, the marine services company at Crib Point, de-rusted and painted by sailors at HMAS Cerberus. Place to remember: Helping plant Crib Point primary’s Remembrance Garden are, from left, Zoe (of French Island’s Perseverance primary), Jasper, Jay, Charlise (sitting) and Simone. Picture: Yanni
Drilling start for port By Keith Platt DRILLING is about to start in the water and on the land to sample the site chosen for an expanded Port of Hastings. Once built, the container port could become the largest in Australia with thousands of ships a year coming in and out of Western Port. Bore samples will be taken from
25 sites on land owned by BlueScope Steel as well as private owners around the Whitneys Rd area in Tyabb Construction of the port north of Long Island Point is expected to start in five years after three years of detailed scientific studies. Planners see Hastings as beginning to take the overflow of containers from
the Port of Melbourne by the mid2020s. Hastings is seen as the only option by the state government for a so-called “megaport� able to cope with demand over the next century. Expanding port facilities at either Stony Point or Crib Point has been ruled out through lack of land and the
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necessity for containers to be carried by road through Hastings township. Although the state government is determined to build the new port, the Port of Hastings Development Authority is using the label “feasibility� for its next phase of operations. The authority’s CEO David Lean last week outlined his view of the port’s
progress to members of Western Port Catchment Committee, including news that contractors had been chosen for geotechnical testing. Mr Lean said dredging was needed for the port to handle large container vessels, although to what extent is unknown. Continued Page 8