Interviewer: Sue Rosen

Length: 15,890 words

Date: May 1992

Frank was 77 years old when he was interviewed and had lived on the river at Laughtondale on One Tree Reach all his life. The family was involved in citrus orcharding and he was also a prawn fisherman. He speaks from first hand experience of water quality in changes in the river and changes in type and number water fauna that he observed while out prawning. He almost died when an ulcer on his leg came into contact with algae that had bloomed because of sewerage contamination in the river.

"Yeah, green algae, with the high or low tide. Matter of fact, you looked down the reach there for half a mile, or a mile; and it was just like a green paddock down there, like grass growing on the river. It was just that bad. Any rate, I picked a little log up, and whether it came off that log, or not, I wouldn't know but that was mid-day, and before morning, it was crucifying, the bloody pain of it. I'm not kidding. I haven't struck anything like it, and ended up in hospital the next day ... the following day [I] ended up in at the 'San' [Sydney Adventist Hospital] there. I was down there for three months with it ..."