Bad river - a video I found on YouTube about the Cooks river

[XD351]

Hi Raiders ,

I was doing a bit of YouTube surfing and this video popped up and I thought it showed a lot of the river ( or what is left of it ) that many never see . What amazes me is how this once fine river still produces fish !

 

Edited August 5, 2022 by XD351
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[Rebel]

Thats @Fab1.. @YowieI told you not to let him out to play soccer.

Cheers.

[masterfisho7]

Love the video top stuff  the Cooks has all ways been known for this 

[Fab1]

To think people eat fish from there.No thanks I wouldn’t let my pet rat eat from there.

[Little_Flatty]

Thanks for sharing @XD351. The pollution is harrowing, much worse than I had ever thought, even though I knew the Cooks was one of the worst in Sydney. Like he said, the worst pollution is in places that are out of sight.

I'd be curious if someone has done the same following the Parra from its upper tributaries in North West Sydney down to the heads. I'm sure that would be quite an adventure.

[Tunastrike11]

What about years ago when there Bondi cigars washed up on the beach after heavy rain alot of things they dont want people to know.

[XD351]

4 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

Thanks for sharing @XD351. The pollution is harrowing, much worse than I had ever thought, even though I knew the Cooks was one of the worst in Sydney. Like he said, the worst pollution is in places that are out of sight.

I'd be curious if someone has done the same following the Parra from its upper tributaries in North West Sydney down to the heads. I'm sure that would be quite an adventure.

I first thought he was going to be talking about the parramatta river when I  saw the title as I still think that it is worse for chemical pollution.

Would love to see him do duck creek and haslams creek  and the tributaries above parramatta dam . 

[Yowie]

10 hours ago, Tunastrike11 said:

What about years ago when there Bondi cigars washed up on the beach after heavy rain alot of things they dont want people to know.

Back in my high school days, one of my fishing mates used to spear fish around the Bondi murk. He said the place was full of fish, but he had to keep a lookout for the floating "blind mullet."   He took a few fish home for eating.  

[big Neil]

An interesting video which clearly demonstrates the impact that humans have on the planet. Realistically though, we are aware of the myriad of ways that we impact nature. Not until we have a "global approach" to dealing with these issues, will we lessen the impact which our existence is having.

Regarding the aside thread about the Bondi murk, here's my view. Sea creatures which we catch and eat, feed on other sea creatures in their entirety (flesh, bones, guts and waste). Indeed the water that they live in is filled with waste from other creatures. Some of our favourite foods (from waters) are the scavengers that exist to clean up all the waste (shrimps, yabbies, crabs, lobsters). Maybe we shouldn't be too critical?

bn

[Yowie]

Yes bn, fish eat other fish, and fish scraps are eaten by crustacean scavengers, then the scraps eaten by sea lice, and eaten by bacteria if anything is left.

In other words, eat or be eaten. 🤣

 

[Burger]

As a kid we swam regularly at Manly beach . . .you  had to watch out for the Blind Mullets, or Polly waffles when body surfing if the wind and swell was from the SE.   😲 😵 🤮

 

[Fab1]

3 minutes ago, Burger said:

As a kid we swam regularly at Manly beach . . .you  had to watch out for the Blind Mullets, or Polly waffles when body surfing if the wind and swell was from the SE.   😲 😵 🤮

 

Polly waffles.Now there’s a chocky I haven’t had in a while.Hope you kept your mouth shut when ending up in the drink.

[Green Hornet]

1 hour ago, Burger said:

As a kid we swam regularly at Manly beach . . .you  had to watch out for the Blind Mullets, or Polly waffles when body surfing if the wind and swell was from the SE.   😲 😵 🤮

 

I was a board rider in my younger days and often came to Sydney to surf with a friend. One day at Malabar I wasn’t too concerned about bluebottles, it was the brownbottles that bothered me.💩

[Burger]

2 hours ago, Fab1 said:

Polly waffles.Now there’s a chocky I haven’t had in a while.Hope you kept your mouth shut when ending up in the drink.

Mouth was ALWAYS shut swimming at Manly! 

[Drunkenfisho]

On 8/9/2022 at 3:33 PM, Burger said:

Mouth was ALWAYS shut swimming at Manly! 

On this topic, I think it's ironic that many rock and beach locations near sewage plants seem to fish quite well😂

[Mike Sydney]

I’ve watched this a few times now and I gotta say I find this video absolutely baffling. That is so far up’river’ I’ve not seen water there before.

I drive down Punchbowl Rd every day and even on a high tide I’ve not seen the water punch past Belfield beyond a mild trickle. This section is several kms further up from what I can gather with the really nasty footage coming from cox’s creek in Strathfield or even Punchbowl (!!)

The Cooks might be filthy, but honestly it looks pretty good downstream of Canterbury Rd. It’s only once you hit the racecourse that it really starts to feel grotty, but that’s as it runs out of flow and starts a hill climb. 

That river of trash looks nothing like the Cooks I know. I understand that’s the point of the video, but I don’t believe all that trash floated upriver. Surely it’s local drain overflow/flood that never escapes into the main water system. Not that it makes it better of course but I don’t think the top end of that tributary is really representative of the river. 

There are some great endeavours cleaning up the Cooks. The cup and saucer wetlands in particular is a great recent addition, I was there the other day and could hear frogs croaking, the ibis were nesting, pukeko and other wading birds around. 

A lot of credit has to go to the community group the Mudcrabs and their frequent cleanups. There’s one tomorrow at Cup and Saucer creek. 

https://www.crva.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Mudcrabs-calendar.pdf
 

 

[essjay]

Cooks has always been pretty crook, since at least the 70's when lived around there.Sad to see nothing has changed for the better.hopefully the illegal dumping of chemicals has slowed or stopped. that used to be a semi regular event from the industrial zones 

[Mike Sydney]

@essjay someone told me there was a cyanide leak in the Cooks in the 70s - it can’t get much worse than that I guess. 
There are still sewage problems. There was a mass kill a couple years back attributed to sewage overflow at Wanstead Reserve.
Earlier this year I was fishing Tempe station bridge and watched as a yellow slick of something poured out of the stormwater drain. I dunno what it was but it didn’t look healthy.

I would be sure it’s still too unhealthy to eat from - I hear the industry at Alexandria Canal is responsible for a lot of that too - but overall it looks pretty clean in most of the system and to the untrained eye it really seems on the mend. There’s fish and birds everywhere, surely a good sign. Wolli Creek tributary is also teeming with life.

From a visual litter point of view (bottles etc) it seems no dirtier than the Parra or Georges and I’m sure this video could’ve turned up similar results from any other river in Sydney. The bloke in the video mentions near the end that it’s worse in the places we can’t see. 

It’s a sad video to watch for sure, at the same time a magnificent piece of cinema. It’s hard to argue with his footage but I like to think things are improving there.

Edited November 14, 2022 by Mike Sydney