Perth Voice Interactive

BY day Mark Loader fishes rubbish out of waterways, but on Saturday night he saved a woman’s life after she jumped off the Narrows Bridge into the icy Swan River.

Mr Loader was skippering the solar powered boat, Ellie J, from the Little Ferry Company.

It’s a side gig to his business Cleanamarina, which uses a solar boat to skim garbage out of the river.

He had finished his scheduled tour, but decided to give the eight passengers onboard a bonus sail, and at about 6.45pm they spotted police cars and lights on the Narrows Bridge.

“I thought they’d pulled someone over,” Mr Loader says.

“I turned the boat around, but as we were going under the bridge someone yelled ‘She’s over there somewhere!’

“They said ‘There was a girl…she’s jumped off the bridge!’

“I turned the boat around and went up past the brewery. I saw a police boat with a flashing light doing a search pattern. We got everyone to turn the music off and be quiet.”

Mr Loader says the quietness of the electric boat meant they could just make out a sound.

“Our little solar ferry meant that we could hear her…I heard this really faint moan, probably 50 to 100m away initially. It looked like two floats in the water, half sunk. It was just a circle of a face, she was that low in the water, and one of her hands.”

The woman was unresponsive when the passengers on the boat held out the boat hook for her to grab, and they had to pull her aboard by her clothing.

“She was close to hypothermic,” Mr Loader says. “She was just out of it because she’d been in the water too long.”

WA Police has confirmed the woman survived.

“She was so close to going under the water,” Mr Loader says. “I’d say she had minutes.”

by DAVID BELL

A PERTH councillor’s attempt last year to make colleagues sign statutory declarations swearing they weren’t leaking secrets to the media has been trumped by Subiaco’s mayor, who’s turned to God as an enforcer.

The Post Newspaper reported this week that Penny Taylor brought a bible to the last council meeting and asked her councillors to swear they hadn’t fed the paper information.

She had some success, with one councillor spotted with their hand on the bible swearing it wasn’t them. Ms Taylor had also set up a table with a JP.

It mirrors a move by Perth councillor Judy McEvoy, who last year tried to get colleagues to sign statutory declarations stating they hadn’t leaked information about the CEO’s contract to the media.

Cr McEvoy’s move was backed by lord mayor Lisa Scaffidi who wanted an end to the leaks, but then-premier elect Mark McGowan called it “unacceptable behaviour”.

Post journo Lloyd Gorman asked Mr Taylor if she thought her actions were similar to Cr McEvoy’s.

“This is absolutely nothing like that,” she told The Post.

A DOLPHIN tangled in fishing line is struggling in the Swan and Canning Rivers, and if she dies her calf “Splash” may not survive without her.

The adult female bottlenose dolphin named High Nitch is a long-term resident of the river, having been regularly sighted for at least 18 years.

On the weekend she was spotted with tangled fishing line stretched between her dorsal and rear fins.

Officers from the parks and wildlife department made several attempts to help her, but she was scared and swam off. On Tuesday officers reported they’d finally managed to remove some of the fishing line.

Baby dolphins are reliant on their mothers’ milk for at least a year.

They can start eating small fish at a young age, but need their mother’s milk for nutrition and the normal weaning period is between three and six years old.

High Nitch is no stranger to tragedy. In 2002 her baby was discovered dead near Point Walter.

A 2010 Murdoch University report on dolphin deaths states: “The dolphin was observed dead in water with mother pushing and supporting in days previous to retrieval.”

While we were chatting to ferryman Mark Loader about his rescue of a woman from the Swan River (see “Solar Rescue” page 2), he mentioned tackle bins along the river are often overflowing with rubbish like cans, making it hard for fisherman to dispose of their tackle.

High Nitch is still tangled in some line, so if you spot her phone the Wildcare Helpline on 9474 9055.

by DAVID BELL

VINCENT council officers want to give a proposed barber shop cum small bar the snip.

Proposed for the old Kartique jewellery shop at 559 Beaufort Street, the business would have a 120-person bar in the rear serving up old school cocktails and a small barber shop up front.

The owners plan to call it Blind Pig Speakeasy, a reference to prohibition when legitimate shopfronts would be used to throw coppers off the scent.

Vincent planning staff say there’s not enough parking and have recommended councillors say ‘no, pig,’ but mayor Emma Cole and deputy Susan Gontaszewski have asked for an alternative recommendation to be drawn up, calling for it to be approved subject to more negotiation on parking management.

Speakeasy

Under council rules the applicants, Bootlegging Wolves, need to provide 27 parking bays – they have zero – so drivers don’t clog up nearby streets.

Applicants can pay cash in lieu of each bay, but that’d cost Bootlegging $97,200, so they’ve offered $35,000 as a compromise.

Bootlegging has hired planning firm Urbanista to plead their case—which is headed up by Petar Mrdja, a former acting planning director at Vincent council.

He’s asking his former council colleagues for clemency. “The abundance of on-street car parking in the Beaufort Street area, public parking facilities, availability of excellent public transport options and the regular use of driver technologies such as Uber, ensure that the needs of users can be met without the need to provide 27 car bays,” he said in a submission.

The barber shop would keep the street frontage active during the day, fighting the trend of Beaufort Street becoming a night-time only entertainment precinct.

by DAVID BELL

THIS mesmerising pillar looks like a post-modern art project, but it’s actually the result of one week’s decomposition at the Community Compost Station in Mount Hawthorn.

“It’s fascinating to see that after just one week, the bottom layers are already decomposing, and that’s before we mix the mulch through to really get the process ‘cooking’.” says Chris Cutress from Transition Town Vincent.

You can read more about the station and how to get rid of your veggie scraps in “Mulch magic the gas” in last week’s Voice here.

The group’s Facebook page is Community Composting Station.

SCITECH turned 30 this week but it’s not sitting on its laurels and has launched an initiative to attract more women and indigenous people to its exhibitions.

Kids have long loved the colourful exhibits and flashy demonstrations, but CEO Deb Hancock says they’re hoping to target people that are under-represented in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), like women, Aborigines and people from low socio-economic groups.

Ms Hancock says their aim is to future-proof WA and get a generation ready for the STEM-based jobs of the future.

“Seventy five per cent of the fastest growing jobs in the next 10 years will require STEM skills,” she says.

They already send out their science vans to visit schools and remote Aboriginal communities, and they’re also aiming for more digital engagement to reach out to remote people who can’t make the trip down to City West.

THE Rosemount Hotel goes all Brazilian on Saturday August 26 with an all-ages fundraiser for Perth’s 6th annual Kuatapoeirando Capoeira Festival.

Hosted by Brazliian martial arts school Capoeira CDO Perth, there’ll be live capoeira and samba, and tunes from musos including Randa and the Soul Kingdom, Belle Harvey, Constanza Herrero and Renata Garcia. It starts 3.30pm and tickets are via trybooking.com (just type “Brazil v Aus”) or head to the event Facebook page.

The actual festival runs October 19 and 20 at Hamersley Recreation Centre.