VOLUNTEERS from the Wolli Creek Preservation Society spent a recent Sunday reclaiming bushland in the Wolli Creek Valley near Bexley North.
This was a special bush-regeneration session on September 27 attended by more than 20 society volunteers.
The society's bushcare co-ordinator, Peter Stevens, said the aim was to restart bushcare work that had been on hold for several years due to Roads and Maritime Service plans for the Westconnex toll road project.
"Many native plants were rescued from competition by weeds and the equivalent of 51 bags of weeds and litter were removed, which doesn't reflect well on the care that RMS has been taking of this land that it owns," Mr Stevens said.
Sunday's effort built on earlier work in the Bexley North section of the valley carried out by volunteers and professional teams supported by $130,000 in grants over the past decade.
He said the society was now pressing to have the RMS area at Bexley North incorporated into the Wolli Creek Regional Park as promised by the Government Roads Agency.
It was pulled out of that transfer because of its prospective use for the construction of WestConnex.
"Roads Minister Duncan Gay has recently stated that the Wolli Creek bushland will not be affected," Mr Stevens said. "We say this means there's no barrier to the immediate handover of the land.
"But the minister is being evasive. He was asked by Canterbury MP Linda Burney when he would instruct RMS to hand over the land.
"He ducked the question, deferring statements about it to the EIS, despite the very public proclamation that the bushland is not affected."
Mr Stevens said that upper Wolli Creek contained a 1.8 hectare remnant of a critically endangered ecological community which should be protected.
"Almost 80 per cent of the Wolli remnant would be destroyed by Westconnex if portals and an emission stack are constructed there," Mr Stevens said.
