Friends of the Box-Ironbark Forests

As a sidelight to FOBIF’s ongoing interest in vegetation clearance on the Pyrenees Highway, we draw readers’ attention to a nice item in the Midland Express [November 20].

Animal shelter managers in Elphinstone lobbied Vicroads to reduce the speed limit on Pollards road to cut the number of animal deaths. Vicroads wouldn’t come to the party, but the Mount Alexander Shire put in 70 kph advisory signs and wildlife crossing signs. Before the signs went up an animal a week would be presented to the shelter. After: there’s been one in 12 months.

Pollards Road: calm down, slow down and reduce animal deaths.

This is a good news story, reinforcing ideas that should by now be commonplace: speed kills, not only people, but animals. As we’ve reported before, you can reduce your chances of hitting an animal by up to 50% by reducing your speed in a known hit area from 100kph to 80kph—and that if you did this over 200 kilometres, you’d be adding only two minutes to the journey!

FOBIF’s submission to Vicroads on the Pyrenees Highway emphasised that significant improvements in safety could be achieved by speed reduction and traffic calming devices like signage and rumble strips. Vicroads, however, is governed by the logic that says that a road like Pollard’s road should have the same speed limit as the Midland Highway…

A Deakin University Phd student has claimed that farm dams are a major contributor to greenhouse gases, according to the Weekly Times [ 21/11 ].

‘This is due to the microbes in dams, which release carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

‘But, according to the scientist behind the work, emissions from dams could be halved with “simple” changes to farming practices.

‘The study’s lead author, Quinn Ollivier, a PhD candidate in Deakin’s Blue Carbon Lab, found Victoria’s 375,000 farm dams produce the equivalent amount of greenhouse gas emissions as 385,000 cars.

‘Mr Ollivier’s study found dam emissions were caused by dissolved nitrate concentrations, and were significantly higher on livestock farms, compared to cropping areas.’

Well, we never knew that. The good news, however, is that the problem can be largely fixed by revegetating dam edges, which would obviously have other environmental benefits.

And while we’re on the subject of dams, the state government has proposed putting a brake on farm dams by instituting a ‘reasonable use limit’ on them from early next year. The proposal is designed to prevent distortions on water accessibility which may happen, for example, if an upstream landholder reduces the amount of water available to downstream users. The proposal has met with plenty of opposition.

As we’ve explained before, FOBIF’s position on this matter starts with a distinction between genuine farm dams, useful for agricultural production, and ornamental dams, put in by some rural users just to have a nice water view. The latter have exploded in number in recent decades, and have a significant effect on our waterways. As the Dja Dja Wurrung joint management plan puts it:

‘Dams fragment the watercourse they’re built on, preventing movement of aquatic animals between parts of the stream on either side of the dam. Dams and channels can decrease gatjin [water] flows downstream, particularly in low rainfall periods, reducing streams to disconnected pools, or causing problems associated with low flows, such as algal outbreaks.’

Vicroads’ proposed tree removal works on the Pyrenees Highway between Green Gully and Newstead have been put on hold pending advice from the Federal Department of the Environment [DEH] on the impact these removals might have on the health of migrating Swift Parrot populations.

Readers will remember that FOBIF has argued that removal of these trees, some of significant size, is both harmful for the amenity of the road and unnecessary for safety. We have argued that a reduction in speed limits and other measures would be a more effective policy, given that this is a winding stretch of road, probably unsuitable for significant speeds.

Vicroads’ response to this has been to point out that a car crashing into a tree at 80 is as fatal as a crash at 90 or 100—which seems to be ignoring that fact that the lower speed would most likely remove the probability of a crash in the first place. Vicroads’ Annual Report for 2016-7, noting a 15% increase in road fatalities in that year,  points out that ‘The most common crash types were run-offroad on high-speed country roads and intersection crashes in metropolitan Melbourne.’ In spite of numerous TAC campaigns like ‘speed kills’, and ‘wipe off 5’, it seems to us that Vicroads is more concerned to improve traffic flow than to influence drivers to drive to conditions. In a weird way, Vicroads and the Transport Accident Commission seem to be at odds…

Vicroads will be holding more consultations in the local area before the works begin.