Mail - Mt Evelyn Mail - 01st April 2014

Page 1

Mount Evelyn

5 Tuesday, 1 April, 2014

Rolling up their sleeves

9

A Mail Newspaper Group publication

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Beware of road mistakes

18-19

Sports of all sorts

Phone: 9751 9300 Trades and Classifieds: 1300 666 808

■ Damaged power lines could ignite fires, hence a need to...

Go underground

Christiaan Bailey performed at the Mount Evelyn Skate Park after the launch. 117703 Picture: ROB CAREW

Health strategy turns the corner By REBECCA BILLS YARRA Ranges Council’s Health and Wellbeing Strategy was launched by world renowned wheelchair skater Christiaan Bailey last Thursday at the Mount Evelyn Station House. Direct from the USA, Bailey spoke of active living and his 2006 skateboard accident that left him paralysed from the waist down.

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Yarra Ranges mayor Fiona McAllister said the strategy provided an approach to ensure services and projects were delivered with a focus on active ageing, healthy eating, place-based community planning, gender equality and social, disability and cultural inclusiveness. “This is a journey we have been on for a long time, and it’s always great to see a refreshed commitment to it,” she said. “I’m very passionate about inclusion

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and health and wellbeing and all of the things the strategy talks about, so I think it is a really timely refresher and reminder on how we can all contribute.” Bailey is one of only two professional wheelchair-skaters in the world and is also a professional big wave surfer. Bailey said with the right outlook on life anything was possible. For full story, see page 18.

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“My main aim is to try and get them underground,” he said. “I understand it will be an expensive exercise and will take time. But if they could stop replacing the broken lines with the same thing and start putting them underground that would be the best for this area.” The Kallista Fire Brigade has thrown their support behind Mr Pizzey, writing to the Fire Services Commissioner requesting that something be done. In a letter to the Fire Commissioner, along with other requests the brigade asked for a survey of dangerous areas where the ABC cables traverse inaccessible sections. Earlier this month, the State Government announced that major works were now underway to replace high voltage electricity distribution power lines as part of its $750 million program to reduce the risk of power lines sparking bushfires. Energy and Resources Minister Nicholas Kotsiras said works had begun at Montrose in the Dandenong Ranges, with another five projects to be carried out across the Otway and Dandenong Ranges by the middle of 2014. “The Victorian Government is committed to replacing power lines in the highest bushfire risk areas in rural and regional Victoria to reduce the risk of power lines igniting fires,” Mr Kotsiras said. “By replacing these highrisk lines with aerial bundled cable, undergrounding or other covered conductor technology, we will ensure that significant power line risk reduction is achieved before the next fire season.

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FIRED up firefighter Bill Pizzey wants high voltage power lines to go underground in Kallista and surrounding towns, worried they’ll be the cause of a large fire in the future. While the fire season is drawing to a close, the seasoned firefighter said he was worried a fire caused by a broken power line could spread into the forest and cause significant damage on high-risk days. Mr Pizzey said fire crews had been called to several fires caused by line faults over the past year, the latest in January a day before a day of Total Fire Ban. “In our area, we have a lot of High Voltage ABC Cable,” Mr Pizzey said. “With large trees and branches falling on the lines, they degrade over time and this is how the fires start.” He said the latest fire caused by the damaged power lines was in Grantulla Road, Kallista. “We had trouble putting out the fire directly as the line was still live, even when it finally failed, it burnt spectacularly for about 10 mins after we got on site,” he said. “There were a number of large explosions spraying sparks and other burning material around. It was dropping lots of molten metal and burning plastic.” He believes that if the fire started on the day of Total Fire Ban - the story could have been different. Mr Pizzey took the Mail on a tour around the areas he believes are most at risk, and says the only way to mitigate the risk is to remove the above ground power lines altogether.

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By MELISSA MEEHAN


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