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At a time when our river red gums are dying of drought and salinity, about 44,000 red gum sleepers have just been cut and laid as part of the Bairnsdale railway upgrade. This is an obscene number of magnificent red gum trees that were sacrificed for, at best, 15 years of service. Ironically, much of the traffic on this line will be the log train taking East Gippsland forests to the export woodchip facility at Geelong.
Next planned rail upgrades are the Mildura and Ararat lines. For Mildura alone, more than 90,000 sleepers need replacing. This would knock a huge hole in the red gum forests of the Murray. The Government says that it's cheaper than concrete . . .