No changes at ski lake despite safety concerns

AN audit by Maritime Safety Victoria at Lake Burrumbeet has found several risks to users and that local rules are not in line with other water bodies in the state.

To bring safety rules at the lake up to standard, a series of changes have been proposed by the City of Ballarat, with feedback sought via the MySay website.

The rule changes included implementing a five-knot speed limit over the northern section, a 40-knot speed limit for the southern section and introducing a speed limit between dark periods.

The proposed changes are aimed to improve general safety for the lake’s users and bringing the space in-line with the Maritime Safety Act 2010.

Speaking at the last City of Ballarat council meeting, vice-commodore of the Burrumbeet Ski Club and vice-president of the Friends of Lake Burrumbeet John O’Neill said the main concern is around closing of around 70 per cent of the lake for the implementation of the new rules.

“The lake has operated that way for several years and with little incidents or accidents,” he said. “We’re concerned too with the lack of consultation about this, it was advertised on the council’s website that the council had consulted with user groups.

“I would like to see the lake left as it is until some sort of consultation does take place and we come up with a plan to make the place better… we’re more than willing to help and the offer to do that labour for free is still there.”

Rather than implementing the lake’s new rules, Cr Amy Johnson moved the motion to await further community consultation in March to address safety risks and investigate further alternatives.

“We are being too risk adverse,” she said. “The report which supports this recommendation is now nearly nine years old and the lake has managed to exist with very few incidents or accidents during that time, so I don’t know why it’s so essential that we make these changes now.

“Let’s just actually put a little bit of trust in our community members this summer and support those community members to look after their lake like they have been for many years without our help.”

Speaking against Cr Johnson’s alternate motion, Cr Mark Harris said if safety is a question and the lake had to be closed because it’s unsafe, that can be mitigated.

“I would be keen to do a consultation as soon as possible, rather than March, but that would be the only mitigation I would accept in terms of a change in the motion,” he said.

“We can’t make compromises with safety, I don’t know if council has really considered what would happen if we had a safety issue now it’s discovered.

“It’s unfortunate that we’ve discovered it now and it’s a travesty for the community that use it that we haven’t addressed ourselves to them earlier.”

In response, mayor Cr Daniel Moloney moved an amendment to the motion to also include that the municipality immediately implement signage and buoy options to mark known present dangers to alert boat users while still allowing the existing speed limits to stay in place.

“There is a good sensible middle option for this which is we allow speed limits to continue but we immediately implement some of the costed measures already put in place by the officers,” he said.

Although the modified motion was carried, Cr Harris, Cr Belinda Coates, and Cr Des Hudson voted against the motion.

“While it is the case that fortunately nothing has happened in those preceding years but once we know about it, we are responsible for that,” Cr Coates said. “I can’t sit comfortably with that level of risk … I can’t support the compromise either unfortunately.”