Ed,

Thanks for the front page coverage of the Aussie Hay Runners, Feed for Friends and the Rotary Club of Melton in Victoria for the delivery of 1000 huge bales of hay and pallets of hard feed from rural Victoria to support our Clarence Valley producers and hobby farmers in the wake of the recent extreme flooding in the Clarence Valley (CVI 13/7/22).

That’s a 1500 kilometre connection, great support from fellow Australians in rural Victoria to our local rural producers who are in need of a helping hand.

There is great coverage in the same issue of our paper about calls for a pause in floodplain development at a community meeting. Valley Watch who convened this meeting informed the attendees that this proposed development first became of concern when announced by the former Maclean Shire Council in 1995.

“Everything is connected to everything else” and “Everything must go somewhere” are the first two of Barry Commoner’s four Laws of Ecology from 1971 and the very generous people from Victoria are connected to our local rural producers who are connected to our rapidly changing climate because “Everything must go somewhere” and that includes far more rain than is normal that “must go somewhere” and has resulted in so much disastrous flooding in the Clarence Valley.

Thankfully we now have elected new Local and Federal governments who now realise that we, the people, understand that “Everything must go somewhere.” 

So if you’re getting hot under the collar about the suggestion for further floodplain development in Yamba after all the damage caused by recent, extreme rainfall to existing floodplain developments, why not put together a short submission to the NSW government Flood Inquiry before it’s closing date on 31st July?

After all, it won’t cost the Earth.

Harry Johnson, Iluka 

PS “The Laws of Ecology” are outlined in the first chapter of Barry Commoner’s book ‘The Closing Circe’ 1971.