Just as a heads up....
Apparently the Lakes have been surveyed for fences and posts running into the water and have been GPS'ed plotted.
Landowners apparently have been sent notifications to remove these structures but most are unable to comply due to poor access. (being underwater - said structures, fence lines built when water was disappearing and cattle wandering away!)
Another guy presented himself from some Government Dept yesterday at Boggy Lake showing us the map and marked objects with 300+ identified. He was after feedback and has a meeting later this week on what sort of budget he may or may not get.
His thoughts were to either attach yellow buoys and or highway flexible markers (orange flat things with reflectors on them). He was more about showing visibility of these said objects.
We all voiced our immediate thoughts on outright removing the fence that is right in front of our launch site!! We were all unanimous on that. We pointed out many posts and fence lines not marked on his map....
Anyway I have his email address and if anyone has any more thoughts, post here and I can forward them:-)
BTW - he's not sure what his budget is and no he can't go get a barge and grapple out all these fences/posts :-(
PS - He has nothing to do with the Murray Bridge Council
you don't need a barge to pull out posts, we used a large flat bottom tinny setup with a frame and winch, got all the wooden and steel posts out.
I offered to place and attach buoys/markers to any fence posts in a suggestion to Pat sparks....
"Peter,
Thank you for your suggestion.
Unfortunately it is an offence for a member of the public to install navigation aids so we need to do it. The reasons are many but most importantly we need to maintain the buoys and beacons and ensure we record the exact locations so we can keep the public informed of their locations.
You can find Notice to Mariners at http://www.sa.gov.au/subject/Transport,+travel+and+motoring/Boating+and+marine/Notices+to+mariners
You will be pleased to hear that at this stage the marking of fences will commence in Boggy Lake and surrounds before other parts of the lake are marked, because we intend to make safe the areas most used and therefore the highest risk, first.
It is intended to mark each fence with 300mm floating spherical yellow special marks which while complying with H&N Regs will also make the fences more visible.
As I said on Saturday, ultimately I'd like to have the fences removed from the bed of the lake but don't hold your breath waiting for that.
Cheers
Pat Sparks
Transport Safety Compliance Officer (Marine) Goolwa
Transport Safety Compliance Section
Safety and Regulation Division
Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure "
