Stony Creek en

Hello, everyone. My name is Natalie Barnett, and I would like to talk to you today about a heritage issue very close to my heart – that of Stony Creek. Stony Creek is a waterway that runs through the western suburbs of St. Albans, Albion, Sunshine, Braybrook, Tottenham, Brooklyn, Kingsville and Yarraville. I have lived my whole life in Yarraville, a suburb of the Maribyrnong City Council, and grown up with Stony Creek quite literally at my doorstep – the creek runs right past the foot of my street, through the back oval of my primary school, and eventually feeds out into the Yarra River through the Stony Creek Backwash. Everyone that I know who has grown up in my area has a wealth of their earliest and fondest memories on the banks of Stony Creek, a creek that was always bustling and full of life, and would burst its banks with every slight rainfall and flood all the way up to the footpath of Cruickshank Park, and even beyond, right to the foot of my street. Nowadays, Stony Creek is barely more than a trickle, and that trickle is polluted. Stony Creek is threatened with a plethora of hazards that puts the health of the creek at risk.