Lake Cathie has been traumatised by "man's", intervention, i.e. opening the lake to the sea. There was never any "opening the lake to the sea" years ago. The lake was opened BY THE SEA, when we had a cyclone from the north-easterlies or rough weather storms.

I was born in Port Macquarie at Mt Ardath Private Hospital (locally known as Nurse Reid's) in 1938. Married on 1957 and came back on March 7, 1988, so I class myself as LOCAL.

My father, Stewart Kennedy, served on council from 7/12/45 to 1977 - 32 years and longest serving Alderman in local government in this area and may be in NSW at the time. He served Port Macquarie Council as Mayor for 6 terms: 1955, 56, 61, 64, 65 and 1971. Also serving 26 years on Oxley County Council (supplier of electricity to this area) from 1948.

The lake has always opened to the sea on the northern side of Lake (Port Macquarie side). I don't know who in council decided to open it to the sea in July, 2018 on the southern side - a very big no, no!

One cannot go against nature. Disaster, as it was only open for two weeks and it has been closed ever since. We had dry weather and everyone was "up in arms" about the lake having no water in it. Well Blind Freddy could tell everyone why that was the case.

It is just beautiful to see the swamps filling up either side of Ocean Drive to Port Macquarie. I now live in Cathie and drive up and down Ocean Dr three or four times per week. Leave Lake Cathie alone while it has some water in it!

Because of a bad decision by a previous council approving a housing development at the back of Lake Cathie where it backs up into the swamp, this council has inherited a "big problem".

The area across the small bridge (another mistake) to Forest Way, Lakeside Way evidently get water in their backyards when the lake begins to fill up. Well, I am sorry to say they are living in the swamp.

Nice big, flat blocks of land, a development which should never have been allowed by some previous council. Also living in the bushfire prone area.

We have had dry years with not so high rainfall. We will get wet years and there are many developments in the Hastings LGA where people will get water on their land. My father used to say, "they'll be up to their necks in water when the rains come". He was born, lived and died here and knew the area well. One can only do so much drainage works, but then heavy rain falls for weeks on end and there will be a lot of residents with water on the land.

I remember my father saying as a young fellow he helped remove the barrage between Lake Innes to Lake Cathie in circa 1930. Both Lakes connected again. As for the colour of the water in both lakes, it is stained that colour due to being surrounded by tea trees, paper barks, Melaleucas what ever name you wish to use. They are common in all swampy land, i.e. around the 14th, 7th fairways on Port Macquarie Golf Course and bottom of Marian Drive and many areas in Port.

If council open the lake to the sea, that means all the wet swampy areas dry out and people will wonder why the lake has no water in it.

Whilst ever council open the lake to the sea, all they are doing is draining all the water in the area from Lake Innes, through Lake Innes Nature Reserve to Lake Cathie. A very poor decision.

Council know all this as they have had expert advice from many environmentalists who know what they are talking about and have all mentioned the above problems.

This present council has inherited a lot of problems from previous councils' bad decision making re housing developments.

On the subject of water supply, Murray Thompson did a wonderful job for council acquiring land and getting Cowarra Dam built. Our water supply comes from the Hastings River up near Koree Island.

The Hastings River only has a small catchment area, not like the Manning and Clarence Rivers. I believe that council is putting more pumps/filters etc in the system.

Murray Thompson and council ran bus tours to inspect the water supply system when the Cowarra Dam was being built and finished. So, anyone whingeing about the water supply doesn't know what they are talking about.

I am all for fluoridating the water supply. Mostly for the sake of young children whose parents would not buy and give them the tablets.

I lived in Grafton from 1960 to 1974 and had two babies whilst living there. Those girls are now 58 and 56 years old and have good strong teeth and no fillings. All due to a dentist in Grafton who canvassed for fluoride to be added to Grafton's water supply.

Bert Dawes was elected to Grafton City Council in early sixties and that water supply has been fluoridated ever since (to the best of my knowledge). So children who grew up in Grafton all had the benefit of fluoridated water. That is why the NSW government made it compulsory for all councils to fluoridate the water supply. Fluoride in minimal doses does not harm anybody.

Councils are only as good as the persons elected to the position. Being a good councillor is a hard job involving many hours and for the amount of money they are paid it does not attract the best brains of the area. Remuneration in my father's day was very small, he was self employed.

A lot of people put themselves up for election because they have some "axe to grind", not the best of ideas as they are only there for one thing.

So all you young people out there dissatisfied with what we have, put your hand up for the council elections, now postponed until 2021, and see what a good job you can do.

I probably would not have had the time to write this letter except for coronavirus as I live alone and have plenty of time on my hands. I would normally be playing bridge/cards.

Wendy Foreman

Lake Cathie