Environment
Prior to European settlement of the Adelaide Plains, winter rains over the catchment of the River Torrens created large seasonal inflows of fresh water into the Reedbeds wetlands, which drained north into the Port River and south to the Patawalonga. Since construction of the Breakout Creek outlet in the 1930s to drain the Reedbeds, and the closure of the former Port Adelaide Wastewater Treatment Plant with the diversion of wastewater to Bolivar in 2005, the upper reaches of the Port River now receive only limited amounts of locally-derived stormwater, and are now largely marine. Flushing of the West Lakes occurs through a one-way system that takes in fresh seawater through an inlet off the coast at the southern end, and discharges into the upper reaches of the Port River.
Despite clearing for industrial purposes since the early days of European settlement, mangrove forests (consisting of only one species, Avicennia marina var resinifera) remain along the shores of Torrens Island, the North Arm which connects to Barker Inlet, and north of the ASC (formerly the Australian Submarine Corporation) facility, adjacent to the Mutton Cove Conservation Reserve on the Lefevre Peninsula. Spring tides are over 2½ metres AHD and at low tide mudflats are exposed near the outlet of the river, forming a breeding ground for blue swimmer crabs and other species. A 118 km² Dolphin sanctuary was enacted by the 2005 Adelaide Dolphin Sanctuary Act and covers all of the Barker Inlet and Port River. Bottlenose dolphins are often seen in the river, examining and following small boats and have become a well known tourist attraction with dolphin cruises departing from Queens Wharf. The industrialised nature of the Port River has led to concern for the welfare of the bottlenose dolphin population and studies have shown that some of the dolphins have very high heavy metal burdens in comparison to dolphins elsewhere. The mudflats at the mouth of the river are part of the Gulf St Vincent Important Bird Area.
Read more about this topic: Port River
Famous quotes containing the word environment:
“Modern man’s capacity for destruction is quixotic evidence of humanity’s capacity for reconstruction. The powerful technological agents we have unleashed against the environment include many of the agents we require for its reconstruction.”
—George F. Will (b. 1941)
“If the Revolution has the right to destroy bridges and art monuments whenever necessary, it will stop still less from laying its hand on any tendency in art which, no matter how great its achievement in form, threatens to disintegrate the revolutionary environment or to arouse the internal forces of the Revolution, that is, the proletariat, the peasantry and the intelligentsia, to a hostile opposition to one another. Our standard is, clearly, political, imperative and intolerant.”
—Leon Trotsky (1879–1940)
“The poorest children in a community now find the beneficent kindergarten open to them from the age of two-and-a-half to six years. Too young heretofore to be eligible to any public school, they have acquired in their babyhood the vicious tendencies of their own depraved neighborhoods; and to their environment at that tender age had been due the loss of decency and self-respect that no after example of education has been able to restore to them.”
—Virginia Thrall Smith (1836–1903)