THE TWEED
what's
www.tweedecho.com.au
new?
Volume 3 #39 Thursday, June 9, 2011 Advertising and news enquiries: Phone: (02) 6672 2280 editor@tweedecho.com.au adcopy@tweedecho.com.au 21,000 copies every week CAB AUDIT
PAGE 11
Local & independent
Illegal wakeboarding rail built in lagoon Luis Feliu
Fingal Head residents have been shocked to learn that a 30-metre ramp for use by extreme wakeboard riders has been built secretly and illegally in a state-protected fish-breeding lagoon on Aboriginal land and operating there for over a year. The structure in the wetland called Sponsors Lagoon off Letitia Road has been described as environmental vandalism and is even featured in an action video online. Footage in the clip, which was posted on the internet early in April last year, shows two boats driving at speed in the lagoon and wakeboarders jumping dangerously onto and off the rail. The images have apparently been used for magazine covers and promoted on a website by a Queenslandbased company called Jetpilot. Stickers on the rail also promote this company, using its logo. The Echo called the company’s Helensvale office yesterday and was told by its marketing manager Chris Apps that they sponsored the two professional wakeboarders claiming to have built the rail, Chris O’Shea and Brenton Priestley but that the company had no connection to the rail. But Mr Apps said the rail was ‘pulled down’ two years ago and the two men they sponsored, who often travel to the US for their sport, left ‘bits of it’ in their office storage area. ‘So if anyone else has put one in there now, it has nothing to do with us,’ he said, declining to elaborate on the so-called previous structure. Tweed Byron Local Aboriginal Land Council (TBLALC) acting chief executive Leweena Williams said the issue was ‘very serious’ and the land council was seeking legal advice on the matter. Tweed Shire Council says it has been aware of the rail since March
‘Somehow these individuals have built a 30-metre ramp in an environmentally sensitive and protected lagoon and taken two boats in there to tear it up and video themselves performing this illegal act.’
Tweed Byron Local Aboriginal Land Council’s Leweena Williams at the Fingal Head lagoon where the wakeboarding rail (background) has been illegally and secretly built. Photo Jeff Dawson
this year, when a council officer came across the rail in the lagoon while inspecting wetland restoration works in March. The officer then notified NSW Maritime. A spokesperson said council planning officers were trying to track down those responsible to order them to cease operating. The spokesperson said council will remove the rail if the TBLALC asks for help but it had not been asked to do so as of yesterday (Wednesday). Jetpilot is an ‘action sport’ apparel company specialising in boardshorts
and wetsuits and claims to be one the leading brands globally in the wakeboarding industry. Ms Williams said the lagoon is on Aboriginal land, protected under the State Environmental Protection Act and is a fish breeding ground for the Tweed River. Fingal Head Community Association president Dawn Walker said, ‘Somehow these individuals have built a 30-metre ramp in an environmentally sensitive and protected lagoon and taken two boats in there to tear it up and video themselves
performing this illegal act. ‘Fingal Head is a sensitive environment which the community is determined to protect from illegal activities like this, that cause damage and destruction and amount to environmental vandalism. ‘People come here to enjoy the beautiful area and both the community and visitors are concerned to see this total disrespect for both the local community and its environment,’ Ms Walker said Heavy penalites apply for unauthorised activities in the lagoon which
has a protected mangrove vegetation community which lives in and around the waterway. Ms Walker said the mangrove ecosystem would have been affected by the illegal construction of the rail and wake from the tinnies and wakeboards. Fingal Head Coastcare president Kay Bolton said the people and companies involved ‘in this environmental vandalism need to be taken to task and made to realise they can’t just do what they like, where they like and trash the environment to suit themselves’. Ms Bolton pointed out that a Murwillumbah man was recently hit with a bill of $23,000 for building an illegal road through a mangrove (see page 2). Ms Walker said the ‘perpetrators are professional wakeboarders sponsored by Jetpilot which is promoting the video on its website and have their logo featured prominently on the illegal ramp’. The website item promoting the rail is headed ‘Living the dream with a rail in the backyard’ and says: ‘Brenton Priestley and Chris O'Shea lived the cruisy summer dream. Moving to a small beach house at Fingal, Northern NSW. About 100m out the front of the house is pristine, uncrowded beaches and 50m out the back of the house is Tweed River and a small offshoot lagoon, where the boys built a rail and spent the summer scoring covers on magazines and shreddin' their arses off. This vid is from a small session Chriso grabbed.’ A wakeboarding retail and training company called Prowake, from Labrador on the Gold Coast, which has been operating a wakeboarding school out of the Tweed River for several years, told The Echo it had no link to Jetpilot apart from selling their brand-name clothing.
ABN 82 087 650 682
<echowebsection=Local News>
continued on page 2