Latest news with #BlueMountains
CTV News
2 days ago
- CTV News
Series of overnight vehicle entries reported in the Collingwood area
Provincial police are investigating a series of overnight vehicle entries in the Town of Collingwood. Officers say they are currently aware of at least three incidents where an unknown man entered vehicles and allegedly stole miscellaneous personal items, including sunglasses and loose change. Police say more incidents remain unreported and are encouraging those people to come forward. The suspect linked to this reported crime is described as a white man wearing a face covering, baseball hat, long sleeve shirt, and distinctive plaid shorts. The OPP is asking residents in the area to check their residential security systems and doorbell-style cameras for any suspicious activity on Wednesday in the early morning hours. Anyone with information regarding this incident is asked to contact the Collingwood and The Blue Mountains OPP at 1-888-310-1122.
ABC News
24-07-2025
- Business
- ABC News
$385m in funding approved to restore access to the Wolgan Valley near the Blue Mountains
The federal and New South Wales governments have approved up to $385 million in funding to restore access into a rural community near the Blue Mountains that has been severely limited for three years. The sole 130-year-old road into the Wolgan Valley was closed in November 2022 after record rainfall triggered multiple landslides. Lithgow City Council made the closure permanent in January 2023, following an engineering firm's assessment of the road's risk. A steep, four-wheel drive track known as the Donkey Steps was established later that month and has been the only access point for residents and visitors since. Wolgan Valley Association (WVA) president Andrew Chalk said the community felt a "huge sense of relief" when the funding approval was announced by the council on Tuesday. "Three years of uncertainty has now been answered with the confidence that we will get some proper means of driving in and out of the valley," he said. Lithgow Mayor Cassandra Coleman said the council was considering multiple options to restore access to the valley, including the construction a new road. Mr Chalk said the prospect of a lengthy wait for a new road was a matter of concern. "On council's time-frame, they're talking about seven years," he said. The Donkey Steps route is unsuitable for heavy vehicles and two-wheel drives, which is less than ideal for the many farmers in the region. "People need to get stock in and out, feed, materials and heavy equipment," Mr Chalk said. "It's just not possible to operate over that extended period." The valley is also a popular tourism destination and several accommodation businesses have suffered due to the closure of Wolgan Road. A luxury resort owned by Emirates has been mothballed since June 2023 and dozens of staff have lost work. Mr Chalk said there were some families in the valley prepared to wait for a new road but most residents wanted the council to fix the existing one. He said he and other community members had sought independent advice from engineering experts who believed the existing road could be fixed in a timely manner. "They [council] have turned what we think is a manageable problem into a giant one," Mr Chalk said. Engineering firm WSP Golder estimated it would cost more than $60m to repair the damaged 2.7-kilometre stretch of road to a level of "marginally acceptable" risk. It recommended Lithgow City Council consider an alternative access route that could provide a more "resilient," "cost effective" and "future-proofed" solution for the valley. The council commissioned investigations into other options and applied for $326m worth of disaster recovery funding last year from the state and federal governments to cover the project. The upper limit approved for the project grew by almost $60 million. Cr Coleman said the council would work with the WVA to deliver a road that worked for the community. "We will take on any feedback they have and we will funnel it through both to Transport for NSW and other agencies that are helping us to deliver this project," she said. The council has commissioned another engineering firm, GHD, to conduct a second risk assessment of Wolgan Road to determine whether it could be temporarily or permanently reopened. In the meantime the council will progress two other new road options through the planning process. "We will be exploring multiple options in regards to what the outcome will be," Cr Coleman said. "The residents down there need certainty, they need access, and we've worked with them and in partnership with [governments] to ensure that this occurs." Transport for NSW said it was committed to restoring access to the valley and would support the Lithgow City Council through technical investigations and project development. "Design and development activities to restore access, which includes confirmation of a preferred alignment, will continue," a spokesperson said in a statement. The council must meet stringent program requirements regarding time and cost-effectiveness throughout the delivery of the project to remain eligible for the funding.
SBS Australia
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
From product sampler to dishwasher, now a successful Filipino restaurant owner in Australia
Chef Jackie Jacutin is originally from Tablon, Cagayan de Oro City. He studied culinary arts through the Department of Education's Alternative Learning System (ALS), which led him to work in restaurants in the Middle East. In 2019, he moved to Australia, where he worked in several hatted restaurants before opening his own—Café Lurline—in 2023. Among the daily bestsellers on their menu are Filipino favourites like sisig, Pedro's chicken inasal with roasted potatoes, and Dao tapsilog or Dao beef skewers. He and his team also recently opened a burger and taco shop in the Blue Mountains, NSW. LISTEN TO THE PODCAST SBS Filipino 23/07/2025 13:43 Filipino Cafe Lurline Credit: Chef Jackie Jacutin Credit: Chef Jackie Jacutin Credit: Chef Jackie Jacutin credit: Chef Jackie Jacutin Credit: Jackie Jacutin Newly opened burger shop Smokey Bundits now serving in the Blue Mountains, NSW. Credit: Jackie Jacutin 📢 Where to Catch SBS Filipino
Malay Mail
17-07-2025
- Health
- Malay Mail
Is it OK to boil water more than once, or should you empty the kettle every time?
SYDNEY, July 17 — The kettle is a household staple practically everywhere — how else would we make our hot drinks? But is it okay to re-boil water that's already in the kettle from last time? While bringing water to a boil disinfects it, you may have heard that boiling water more than once will somehow make the water harmful and therefore you should empty the kettle each time. Such claims are often accompanied by the argument that re-boiled water leads to the accumulation of allegedly hazardous substances including metals such as arsenic, or salts such as nitrates and fluoride. This isn't true. To understand why, let's look at what is in our tap water and what really happens when we boil it. What's in our tap water? Let's take the example of tap water supplied by Sydney Water, Australia's largest water utility which supplies water to Sydney, the Blue Mountains and the Illawarra region. From the publicly available data for the January to March 2025 quarter for the Illawarra region, these were the average water quality results: pH was slightly alkaline total dissolved solids were low enough to avoid causing scaling in pipes or appliances fluoride content was appropriate to improve dental health, and it was 'soft' water with a total hardness value below 40mg of calcium carbonate per litre. The water contained trace amounts of metals such as iron and lead, low enough magnesium levels that it can't be tasted, and sodium levels substantially lower than those in popular soft drinks. These and all other monitored quality parameters were well within the Australian Drinking Water Guidelines during that period. If you were to make tea with this water, re-boiling would not cause a health problem. Here's why. It's difficult to concentrate such low levels of chemicals To concentrate substances in the water, you'd need to evaporate some of the liquid while the chemicals stay behind. Water evaporates at any temperature, but the vast majority of evaporation happens at the boiling point — when water turns into steam. During boiling, some volatile organic compounds might escape into the air, but the amount of the inorganic compounds (such as metals and salts) remains unchanged. While the concentration of inorganic compounds might increase as drinking water evaporates when boiled, evidence shows it doesn't happen to such an extent that it would be hazardous. Let's say you boil one litre of tap water in a kettle in the morning, and your tap water has a fluoride content of 1mg per litre, which is within the limits of Australian guidelines. You make a cup of tea taking 200ml of the boiled water. You then make another cup of tea in the afternoon by re-boiling the remaining water. On both occasions, if heating was stopped soon after boiling started, the loss of water by evaporation would be small, and the fluoride content in each cup of tea would be similar. But let's assume that when making the second cup, you let the water keep boiling until 100ml of what's in the kettle evaporates. Even then, the amount of fluoride you would consume with the second cup (0.23mg) would not be significantly higher than the fluoride you consumed with the first cup of tea (0.20mg). The same applies to any other minerals or organics the supplied water may have contained. Let's take lead: the water supplied in the Illawarra region as mentioned above, had a lead concentration of less than 0.0001mg per litre. To reach an unsafe lead concentration (0.01mg per litre, according to Australian guidelines) in a cup of water, you'd need to boil down roughly 20 litres of tap water to just that cup of 200ml. Practically that is unlikely to happen — most electric kettles are designed to boil briefly before automatically shutting off. As long as the water you're using is within the guidelines for drinking water, you can't really concentrate it to harmful levels within your kettle. But what about taste? Whether re-boiled water actually affects the taste of your drinks will depend entirely on the specifics of your local water supply and your personal preferences. The slight change in mineral concentration, or the loss of dissolved oxygen from water during boiling may affect the taste for some people — although there are a lot of other factors that contribute to the taste of your tap water. The bottom line is that as long as the water in your kettle was originally compliant with guidelines for safe drinking water, it will remain safe and potable even after repeated boiling. — Reuters
CTV News
15-07-2025
- Health
- CTV News
Health unit tracking down owners of dog that bit toddler along Thornbury beach
The local health unit is requesting assistance from the public in identifying the owners of a dog that bit a toddler on a Thornbury beach. On Saturday, just before 9 p.m., a three-year-old was out on the beach in the Town of Blue Mountains when a large, black dog reportedly bit them. Health officials say the dog was walking with a man and a woman on a leash. Staff at Grey Bruce Public Health would like to confirm that the dog is not infected with rabies. By verifying the health of the dog, the victim can avoid receiving the post-exposure rabies treatment. If you have any information related to this incident, officials ask that you contact Grey Bruce Public Health at 519-376-9420 ext 1330.
