⏱️ This edition of the West Vic Brolga newsletter is a five-minute read.
👋🏻 Hello Brolga readers, Zara with you again for your Friday.
Here’s what’s cooking for stories today:
🐮 A debate between neighbours and quarry owners over bore water;
🌊 How tourism spending dropped 75 percent after January’s extreme weather;
💍 A profile of the owner behind Ballarat’s new jewellery store;
🚨 And a police crackdown on Ballarat hooning.
Before we jump in, I have a request for your stories of attending concerts or festivals in West Vic back in the day. For example, did you see Skyhooks perform in Colac, Warrnambool, Ballarat or Hamilton when they went on tour in 1974?
Did you see another famous act at a local gig? Did you attend a festival with a rich history or one that’s no longer running? I want to hear it all. Just reply to this email with your stories.
In the Southwest 🗞️
A bid to more than double production at a Birregurra quarry has put alleged groundwater contamination and the economic benefits of increased extraction at the centre of a dispute between neighbours and the operator.
What's going on: Birregurra Resources is seeking to remove conditions on its planning permit, which caps production at 200,000 tonnes a year and limits truck movements to five per hour.
The proposed changes would allow production of up to 500,000 tonnes a year, with up to 20 truck movements an hour during peak periods.
The background: At Colac Otway Shire Council's submissions hearing on Tuesday, solicitor Neil Longmore, representing farmers Rodney and Russell Beach, who live near the Mooleric Road quarry, told councillors there had long been concerns about the groundwater.
Submission hearings allow people who have made formal submissions or objections to a proposal to speak directly to councillors on the planning committee to listen to the views of people involved. It is not a decision making process.
Longmore said council originally refused the quarry permit in 2014 before the matter went to VCAT, with council later warning the Planning Minister of an “unacceptable risk to accessibility and quality of groundwater”.
The quarry was eventually given the go-ahead in 2017 and began operating in 2020.
Water issues: Longmore said his client Rodney had two cattle drinking from a bore about 300 metres from the quarry that “died of nitrate poisoning after drinking that water”.
He also raised concerns about nitrate monitoring, saying community consultative committee minutes indicated nitrate levels investigated by Southern Rural Water in 2024 were “higher than they should be”.
The nitrate poisoning claim has not been established by the council as a finding of fact, and Longmore acknowledged it was difficult to say whether nitrate poisoning from the bore was the only cause of the deaths.
New research shows Australian travellers are altering their holiday plans because of extreme heat, with possible large-scale repercussions for the billion-dollar tourism industry on West Vic’s coastline.
Real world impact: Along the Great Ocean Road, January’s dual hit of fire and flood remains etched in local memory. Both businesses and residents have toiled with lost security and lost trade, and now face a long-range forecast of unusually high temperatures heading into the summer period.
Surf Coast Shire reported the average daily spend in its coastal hubs was halved after the January 2026 flash flooding event, reducing from $386,000 a day to $172,000.
What happened: In January, the Great Ocean Road was confronted with extreme weather events almost back to back: devastating fires tearing through the Otways and flash flooding that caused extensive destruction through Wye River, Lorne, and more.
Why does it matter: Tourism is a crucial pillar of both the Surf Coast and Otways economy.
The local industry is worth $1.9 billion, and approximately four million visits to the region each year are linked to its natural assets: the 12 Apostles, vibrant rainforests, and dramatic cliffside coastlines.
Tallying the cost: Surf Coast Shire Mayor Libby Stapleton said the region lost 230,000 visitors in the aftermath of January’s weather events, and spending in the second half of the month declined by 75 percent.
“I think it was a double whammy of fires in the landscape, the threat of fire in Colac-Otway Shire and the flood as well,” she told the Brolga. “A lot of people chose to stay away, even though Lorne was pretty much open the next day.”
Stapleton said it was an understandable “precautionary approach” from tourists, but given the billion-dollar tourism industry in the region, it was “really significant, and really impacted local businesses.”
“There’s extensive erosion and gullies where you might have had a one-to-two-metre ridge which is now five metres,” she said. “Viewing platforms and waterfalls too.”
As financial pressure on households mounts, Warrnambool City Council is facing $1.7 million in lost rates and other debts it doubts it can recover, up 20 percent from the previous year.
What happened: Councillors received the draft 2025-26 financial statements at Monday’s meeting.
Councillor Billy Edis told the meeting the results “really highlight the situation, not only where [the] council sits budget-wise, but also where the community sits as well”.
The statements show outstanding balances for rates and infringements increased by about 20 and 16 percent respectively, with the trends linked to ongoing cost-of-living pressures.
Hardship process: Under the council’s financial hardship system, residents having difficulty paying rates can apply for assistance.
A $250 rate rebate is available for owner-occupiers who meet the criteria, while payment deferrals for other council services are also assessed on a case-by-case basis.
Small surplus: The council had forecast a surplus of $7.5 million for 2025/26, but it wound up at $3.3 million. In 2024/25 the surplus was $11.9 million.
Council CEO Andrew Mason said Warrnambool City was in a “sound financial position”.
In the Central Highlands 🗞️
The contemporary jewellery scene in Ballarat is in bloom, with one of its own opening the doors on her practice next week, allowing the public into her workshop with the unveiling of her first physical storefront.
Alana Catherine Smith, owner of Cut Off Your Hands Jewellery, has been honing her craft for over a decade, using flames, wax and hammers to build each necklace, bracelet, earring and ring she sells herself.
The name: Smith said that one of the questions she gets the most is, why that name?
“When I first started, I figured when people put my rings on, they’d never take them off,” she told the Brolga. “So, if people wanted to steal them, they'd have to cut off their hands.”
Smith added some customers have flagged the violence of the name, but she ultimately decided it encapsulates the aesthetic of the brand too well to shift.
The style: Smith’s work is inspired by brutalist architecture, and she works with a variety of metals to capture rough, eroded textures. She said that she has always loved the “decay of worn concrete”, so she started working with it.
“I’m into everything brutal,” Smith told the Brolga. “I like aggressive, harsh music, I love abstract art, I like movies that are a bit messed up.”
Ideas come in all forms, including the local heritage skyline.
“In Ballarat, every time I walk past Town Hall and see the bluestone, I’m like that’s a ring right there,” she said.
A familiar soundtrack on the main drag of Ballarat is a P-Plater hitting the limiter in their V6 Commodore.
Now, local police are cracking down on the well-known Sturt Street “mainie” with Operation Talladega launching earlier this month – with 28 drivers detected so far.
What is a mainie? A common sight in all pockets of Australia, a mainie is the exercise of driving up and down a town’s main street at various excessive speeds.
“Bashing the limiter” is putting your foot to the floor, pressing the accelerator to make the loudest sound possible.
Operation Talladega: The targeted blitz from police is zeroing in on “intentional high-risk driving”.
“Hooning shows a complete disregard for the safety of not only the driver but all other road users and pedestrians,” Ballarat Highway Patrol Sergeant Craig Walker said.
“We have zero tolerance for it and will continue to run operations like this one to remove unsafe drivers and vehicles from our roads.”
The results: One of the “alleged speedsters”, aged 19, was caught driving almost double the limit. He told police he was simply “keen to get home”, but nonetheless had his car impounded for 30 days.
Thanks for reading today’s newsletter folks.
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Have a great weekend. Go Cats.
Cheers,
Zara