Ted Sands’ plea for Tamar River repair

For more than a decade the City of Launceston alderman has been investigating and assessing the build-up of sediment and health of the Tamar River.

On Wednesday the Launceston veteran aired his frustrations with the toing and froing on the issue in several levels of government.

“You just can’t leave a city that’s floundering in its own waste and the outcomes are just appalling,” he said.  

With sewage overflows occurring regularly, Alderman Sands suggested holding ponds should be built to hold growing water and sewage levels before feeding it into a treatment plant.

A member of the newly-established Tamar Estuary Management Taskforce, he hoped it would identify a fix.

“We just can’t go on having a conversation,” he said. 

“I don’t want to be another think-tank and another brain-busting organisation.”

That taskforce is due to recommend a fix by January. 

A Launceston resident of 40 years, Alderman Sands remained frustrated with the discussion for fixing the network

“I’ve lived here long enough and nothing has changed,” he said.  

“If this was on the mainland it would be fixed within a matter of weeks or months – we;’re really no better than a third-world country.”

In 2013, Alderman Sands visited Carrum Downs in Victoria to view its sewerage infrastructure complex.

He said Launceston could learn a lot or even fix the problem if the right engineers were drafted to solve it.

“We’ve got to bite the bullet on this, we’ve been talking about it for 10 or 15 years of my time on council – we need to go to the federal environment minister and say look we need some serious dollars,” he said. 

“I sincerely hope in my lifetime – before I leave this Earth – this is fixed.

“You’ve got to have people who are prepared to stand up and arch up to Canberra and say, Mr Prime Minister, we need this money.”