Colin

My name is Colin and because all the teachers have asked for the same letter for back ground information I wish I had a standard letter. Present day to the past 51 years. Currently my employer is the Mount hospital where I work as an orderly in intensive care unit until I started this course and my day shifts were replaced with night shifts as hospital orderly. Orderly work is best suited to somebody about my age as sometimes there is not a lot to do especially at nights. Domestic painter and decorator I was for. 35 years and have seen a lot industrial pollution in my time working around building sites but was astounded to find that yachts moored in the swan river pollute. Yachts use a soft self polishing anti fouling paint witch is designed to wear away with speed or be wiped clean of growth to enable the yacht to go faster. Every year a small yacht would have a 4 litre can of anti fouling applied to the hull. Those that race there boats, wipe clean the hull every few weeks, for maximum speed. All my life I have used the swan river for recreation purposes these include swimming, crabbing, prawning ,mussel ling ,fishing, diving and boating and it is the latter that I discovered that causes a lot of pollution. Recreation use by boaties on the swan river must be looked at so to reduce the amount of anti fouling leaching into the swan river. One possible way would be to make hard stand areas to put yachts on, out of the water; this would reduce the amount of pollution. Another way would be to raise the amount of fees. Mooring licences’ are far too cheap when you consider the pollution coming off boats. To remove moored boats from the swan river, simply put up fees to make it un attractive to keep these environmental hazards on the swan river. I hope my story disturbs people enough to bring some change .There is nothing environmentally friendly about anti fouling paint