The City of Swan intends to construct a bridge crossing the wetland of the Helena River, connecting Hazelmere to Midland. The Lloyd Street Bridge proposed design is completely inappropriate for the location, it does not perform environmentally or culturally, and is not best practice. Let me explain why.

The proposed bridge will infill the vast majority of a category conservation wetland, which is located in the Swan-Canning River Park, and is also classed by the City of Swan as an area requiring a high-level protection. The proposed design will sever the floodplain in two, walling off its entire width but for a small 50ish metre gap where the actual bridge will be installed. The project will require clearing of one of the last fully wooded remnant wetlands along the Helena River, and possibly in Perth. The wetland provides habitat for quenda, and long neck turtles; red and Carnaby’s cockatoos are likely to roost, feed and potentially breed within this remnant vegetation. If this was not enough, the Helena River is sacred to the Noongar people. The very trees in this floodplain have witnessed the passing of centuries, offered shelters, food and water to the Noongar people. It contains their memories, it’s their connection to country.

We are told over and over again that the project has section 18 approval. However, section 18 approval has enabled the destruction of the Juukan gorge, and thus, it does not mean that the best interest of the Noongar people has been protected in this process.

On Saturday the 4th of December 2021, a rally was held to raise awareness around the plight of this unique place. We invited a local Elder to join us. I had the honour to observe how he conducted his own welcome to country while walking across the wetland. In full regalia he conducted his own pilgrimage in that floodplain, immersed in nature, he chanted in his ancient language accompanied by the rhythm of his sticks, with birds and crickets amplifying his melody, he was one with this sacred space. You could see his pain, knowing that this place will be defaced, that he will no longer be able to walk freely across the floodplain, that he and his people will be deprived of yet another place that holds their memories. Their memories are also our memories. Their pain is also are pain. Their loss is also our loss. We will all weep with them, if this bridge proceeds with this current proposed design.

The City of Swan has the power to light hope and preserve this place into the future, by commissioning a better bridge. We are simply asking the City of Swan to stop and rethink the Lloyd Street bridge design, before ground is broken. Ask them to stop clearing until a better design is developed and costed. Ask them to respect our collective heritage. Let the City of Swan know, that the Helena River is not theirs to be defaced.

If we lose this place, other projects like this will come, other wetlands will be infilled, other places of memory and importance will be obliterated into oblivion, concealed by the darkness of infilled ramp; turtles buried alive, birds left without homes, ancient trees made into mulch, memories left without a connection to a place, dispossessed, displaced, orphaned.

It took me a while to love the Helena River, with its messy bed full of fallen paper bark trunks, flowing only at times of good rain, with its floodplains at time neglected and weedy, its eroding banks, its course constrained by ever expanding development, its flow robbed by upstream dams. But then you start to pay attention, you see the towering trees that adorn those banks, that anchor the wetland in its place, you follow their trunks towards the sky and see holes in those trunks, birds in those hollows, flowers in those branches. You hear the frogs at night and the call of magpies, sometimes when you are lucky you catch a long-necked turtle sunning itself, a quenda rummaging in the leaf litter under the shade of those century old trees. Mandoon belliar, the Helena River, slowly wins you over, and once she gets old of you it makes your heart forever hers. I cannot bear the thought of this bridge, so ill-conceived, scarring her wetland, vandalizing a place of such ancient beauty and heritage.

Please help Mandoon belliar preserve her magic for all future generations, so that they, too, can be captured by her and feel what it means to be connected to nature and to a place.

Please sign this petition to Save the Helena River Wetland - Rethink the Lloyd Street Bridge Design. The petition will be lodged at a City of Swan Council meeting in December 2021.

To the Mayor David Lucas and all City of Swan Councillors: We, the undersigned, are concerned about the environmental and cultural heritage impact of the Lloyd Street Bridge

We call on the City of Swan: To agree to no clearing until further consultation with the community and Traditional Owners has occurred, support a bridge design that preserves the Helena River wetland and environment, maintains the integrity of cultural heritage sites, allows water to run freely across the floodplain, preserves the habitat of long-necked turtles, black cockatoos and quendas, and is environmentally and culturally responsible and financially viable.