Foreshore project will 'stink'

A respected former city council engineer has predicted the planned Perth waterfront inlet will suffer from a build-up of mud and "stink" and that rerouting Riverside Drive around the new water body will be disastrous.

Joining renewed public debate on the Barnett Government's proposal - including comments by the newly formed City Gatekeepers group - Amos Machlin said the Swan River was not a fast flowing river, mud would build up in the inlet and would not get flushed out.

His comments come as photographs taken from a helicopter by _The Weekend West _have revealed how the river inlet will sit in the city landscape.

Guided by lines etched into the Esplanade by the waterfront project team, the area within those lines shows the landmass to be dug out when construction starts in April.

Mr Machlin said he supported redevelopment of the Perth foreshore. But he believed there would be no tidal movement along the length of the inlet. He said while navigational channels were deeper, elsewhere mud could be 1m below the surface.

"The mud that will build up over time . . . won't get flushed out," he said. "In time, and with low tide, the mud will be up to the surface and the area will stink."

Mr Machlin, who worked at the City of Perth for 34 years, including 10 as chief engineer until 1986, said this happened "virtually every summer" before the Narrows Interchange was built in the 1960s.

"In my assessment, those conditions are going to be repeated in this inlet," he said.

However, Planning Minister John Day said information from water quality and groundwater monitoring in 2010 was used to develop a "hydrodynamic flushing model" and influence inlet design. Water quality monitoring would continue when the inlet was built.

Mr Day said the project was receiving the best possible planning, design and construction expertise.

Mr Machlin, who is also a former president of the Local Government Engineers Association of WA, said diverting the 30,000 cars a day using Riverside Drive around the inlet would affect the movement of pedestrians and "negate one part of the whole purpose of this investment".

Mr Day said traffic travelling past the city would be redistributed to a widened Graham Farmer Freeway. The Government was also working on a city-wide transport plan.