Some years ago I sent pictures to the Leader alerting interested parties of the desperate state of the vegetation along Bardwell Creek near Bexley Road and also Wolli Creek adjacent to Bexley North railway station.
The vines have covered all the mature trees and they now appear as ghostly shadows.
Now, like an advancing army, the vines are smothering all in their path right along the creek adjacent to Bardwell Valley Golf Course.
Apart from the disgraceful loss of mature eucalypts, casuarinas and lilli pillies the animal and bird life are suffering because of habitat loss.
Dismiss this at your peril because it is these trees which hold the creek banks together. When they die - and many are already dead - the next flood will wash away the banks as there will be no roots to hold them in place.
Five years ago there was such a flood where picnic tables near Slade Road were covered in water and flood waters rose to the Slade Road bridge and it came to within 40cm of villas there.
My family pulls at the creeping cursed vines covering the trees as we walk along the bank, but the effort is futile. Most vines have their roots firmly in the creek.
There needs to be a professional weed eradication strategy before the inevitable happens.
Ann Marshall, Bardwell Valley