Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

Oceanfront real estate bargains at Fremantle

For the past couple of years we've had dust problems in our back garden. The glass topped tables we use for family entertainment need to be washed down regularly every couple of days. We believe much of the grit has been blowing in from a major coastal real estate development at Coogee, a couple of kilometres south of Fremantle.

Coogee was once known for its abattoir and associated tannery skin sheds - built mainly for hanging up sheep skins. These stinking arrangements were constructed on either side of the narrow coastal road and were so revolting that occupants of passing cars usually felt obliged to keep the windows up for a kilometre or so until the air was clear again.

In the same area was the state-run coal-fired South Fremantle power station. It's still there, but has long been shut down and is now a playground for graffiti vandals. For me it's main claim to fame was the revelation that in the latter part of the twentieth century that polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contaminated power transformers had been dumped on it's waterfront breakwater and then leached their carcinogenic residue into the ocean.

The stuff lasts pretty well forever. It was an appalling disregard for the environment and done at a time when the dangers of PCBs were well known. After the expose, warning signs were placed in strategic positions, but I didn't seen any of them remaining when I was there a few months ago.

The fancy land development which has been underway for the past couple of years and includes a waterfront marina is constructed a short distance south of the old power station.

Yesterday was auction day for what is now regarded as prime real estate. Twenty eight small waterfront blocks were up for grabs by the highest bidders. When I say small, they were in the vicinity of 500 square metres, which is about half the size of the block we live on.

According to a local newspaper report, many wealthy bidders had flocked in from overseas and the eastern states to snap up a bargain. This meant most Western Australians were priced out of the running, which in light of the past industrial history of this section of the coast, could have been a lucky stroke for them.

All the blocks were sold. Apparently people were desperate to get them, with the average price being $3.2 million dollars. For this start-up outlay they'll apparently be able to park a luxury boat in front of their eventual, certain-to-be ostentatious, and hopefully tsunami-proof, dwellings.

With ocean levels on the rise, it would be interesting to see how well the structures are coping in fifty years time. By then the developers will have long gone, and probably most of the original residents too. The next generation of occupants will possibly be bleating that the government of the day should be doing more to protect them from incusion by the ocean.

When I was a teenager and long before the contamination scandal at the power station, the fishing in the adjacent waters used to be very good. A school friend named Ross C. used to occasionally invite me to go fishing with him and his father on small wooden boat. About four hundred yards out from the power station he had a favourite 'skippy hole' and one day took us there. It was an amazing experience. - the best fishing experience I've ever had. It was a real hole, and quite deep. Every time we dropped our hand lines into it we would very quickly get a bite. Skipjack are very powerful for their size, and these were big ones. The excitement only lasted about a half hour before they went off the bite. I don't think we caught them all because we only had a couple of dozen. But it was enough.

In years following when I had my own boat, I tried a couple of times to find the spot again, but was never successful.

Nowadays I'd not eat any fish from the area, that's if there were any fish to catch. Cockburn Sound has suffered enormous degradation over the past half century and the marine flora and fauna has suffered greatly. Only a couple of weeks ago all commercial fishing was banned, however this is only a half-way measure, because the much more numerous recreational fishers can continue their intensive efforts pretty well unopposed. With the GPS technology at their disposal, finding things like once-secret skippy holes is effortless.

What will happen is what I determined in my former university studies of maritime resource exploitation on the northern, southern and western coasts of this state. It's simply that as exploitation of target species intensifies, it eventually becomes unsustainable, so many fishers extend their range and intensify their efforts with more efficient technology. Target species don't have a chance.

This phenomena will manifest amongst the cashed up nouveau riche who bought the expensive real estate yesterday. It won't matter to them that the waters near Fremantle are now fished out. They'll acquire fast, long range boats with high tech equipment to moore in the new marina, and then travel great distances to satisfy their fish killing egos. As I said, the target species don't stand a chance.

© MMVII Paul R. Weaver.

About the writer

Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write a couple of million words.

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