St George letters: Concerns over asbestos in our nature strips

Many of the footpaths and nature strips in Oatley, Penshurst and Mortdale have old concrete Telstra pits which were not replaced during the installation of the NBN.

Telstra tells its contractors to treat all their non-plastic pits as potentially containing asbestos.

Unfortunately some of these pits in our nature strips or footpaths have above-ground edges which have become weakened due to many years of weathering and general wear and tear.

During mowing of nature strips, mower blades or whipper-snipper cords could hit these weakened exposed pit edges and throw small fragments of material into the air or onto the ground.

These fragments may contain asbestos. In the worst case this could lead to people nearby inhaling airborne asbestos fibres.

If people have a Telstra concrete pit in their nature strip they are concerned about, they can report it online or by phone to Telstra who may inspect the pit and if necessary, protect the pit from further damage and schedule it for future replacement.

On Thursday 11 January I went for a walk with friends. It was a humid day: dew point 26C, a record. I felt tired and it took me two days to recover.

If we continue to burn fossil fuels there will be higher records.

According to the conventional wisdom 35C is the dew point which prevents sweat from cooling the human body.

A human exposed to this humidity for too long will die. Some researchers put the dangerous dew point at 31C.

If we continue to poison the atmosphere with greenhouse gases we will break dew point records almost every year.

This is a climate emergency. It will affect us all, not just our children and grandchildren.

Thanks to all the Police who were obviously out-and-about locally during Christmas 2023.

I personally witnessed a speeding criminal pursued and stopped by Police.

Sirens are heard much more often.

I've heard of several other instances in which speeding criminals were stopped.

I saw two Police cars come from nowhere, to arrest a young speeding (motor bike) criminal, in our street.

I can only assume he was more of a serious criminal, more than just a pitiful-little-hoon, because he was told to lay face down on the ground, hand cuffed, arrested and taken away.

Again, a big and sincere thank you to all the Police involved over the last few weeks.

From our perspective, it was by far the quietest Christmas we have had locally, since living here.

Then on Friday 12, Saturday 13 and Sunday 14 of January 2024, it all came back. Nothing has changed.

The evenings of 12 and 13 were particularly bad.

Speeding criminals spewed their noise, smell and law-breaking speed onto our streets again as if they had been saving it up.

But how can this happen?

After all, we now have three sparkling new speed cameras, fixed, on Grand Parade.

As I've said, these three cameras will NOT stop speeding criminals locally. It's an indisputable fact! Want proof ? The result of their lack of impact locally, is noted above.

Still, no-one has done anything.

Except for the police, when they can. It will be interesting to see if permanent, worthwhile action is taken to stop speeding criminals locally in 2024.

I hope it is the year those in office, do things differently.

Best to you all for 2024.

Instead of keeping or moving the date for Australia Day, I suggest....TWO days.

The 25th and the 26th.

This extra day will give us the opportunity to recognise the Indigenous population firstly (first nation), and the 26th will become Australia 2 Day (Australia Today) where we come together as one nation.

You could have a choice of which you took off work, or we forgo the Kings Birthday/ Bank Holiday.

Details to be worked out by people smarter than me.

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