A farming couple near Yass were disgusted to find their paddocks full of garbage after the floods a fortnight ago. That garbage, they worry, could pose a threat to people further downstream.
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The Yass River passes through Bill and Jacinta Ryan's 800-acre (350 hectare) property 3km downstream from Gundaroo, eventually feeding the Yass Dam, the town's main water supply. Now rubbish is scattered over all the Ryans' river frontage - some 6km long, or an estimated 50 hectares.
It included insecticide tins, cans of poison, and pine posts treated with arsenic; building materials, roof trusses, CHEP pallets, and sawn-off timber; tyres; wine bottles and beer cans; plastic containers and polystyrene boxes; and dog toys and garden ornaments.
All things that would not, should not normally be in a river - and all washed downstream after the flooding of August 7 to 9.
"Our concern is that this is the water ending up in Yass for the community there," the Ryans said. "With all this rubbish in it, we can only begin to imagine the quality of the water. It is always expected that there will be debris - reeds and branches - but this is garbage that should be in the tip, not our water system."
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The Ryans have owned their property since the early 1980s. The recent flooding was the most severe since then, the couple said.
"An unprecedented amount of rain," Mrs Ryan said; "a one in a 10-15 year event."
The couple say the amount of rubbish is unusual.
"It just is getting worse," Mr Ryan said. "We've been here since 1983, and you would never get this stuff coming down the river."
At this time of year, they would normally plant crops in their paddocks. Now, they are faced with the arduous task of clearing the land before they can start sowing.
"It's a job that one should not have to do," Mrs Ryan said. "Everybody has an interest in waterways. They benefit everybody. You would hope that people would look after their waterways, particularly when water is such a precious commodity in this country now."
Mr Ryan has spent three days trying to move the debris with his tractor. "Everywhere you can see where the flood's been, you can see rubbish," Mr Ryan said. "It just looks like something you can see out of Thailand, going along those river cruises."
When we talked to him, the farmer was cleaning up timber and bottles along the river, and about to start picking up polystyrene boxes.
"I can see polystyrene boxes for about a kilometre or two in front of me," Mr Ryan said. "They're pretty easy to see because they're white, and they get caught along the fence lines where the flood line is."
Gundaroo village is upstream, but Mrs Ryan said it was difficult to pinpoint exactly where the massive amount of rubbish came from.
Not from the tip, she believes; their property is nowhere near any such facility.
Perhaps, the couple speculated, some people had disposed of litter as they drove along, while others had left timber along the riverbanks. "You can see chainsaw cuts in half the timber," Mr Ryan added.
All the litter had a separate source, Mr Ryan thought.
"No one person is putting that stuff in the river; it's more than one person."
The Ryans said neighbours upstream had also been 'driven mad' with the rubbish coming down the river.
They said it was hard to estimate the volume.
"We're only looking at the little bit that comes up along the edge of the floodline - most of it's going to be in the river," Mr Ryan said. "It's floating around out of sight, out of mind."
"If this is what's coming through at our end," Mrs Ryan said, "there will be residue going down through to Yass."
Cattle and sheep drink from the river before it reaches the town. In summer, people swim in the river; in the town itself, residents bathe in the water, put it in their gardens, boil it for cooking and drinking, and brush their teeth with it.
The Ryans believe that the river ecosystem is also at risk.
"The river here is quite delicate, apart from being critical for drinking water supplies," Mr Ryan said. "Wildlife depends on that whole system as well."
A black snake, for instance, had been washed down in the debris.
In their time on the property, the Ryans have seen species of fish disappear.
Mr Ryan said Macquarie perch lived in the river near Gundaroo in the 1970s; they died out in the 1990s. Once, there were rainbow and brown trout, and redfin perch.
"Now," Mr Ryan said, "we're just down to dirty old carp." It was hard to know, he mused, whether pollution or a run of bad seasons was to blame: "You don't like to attribute too much."
Mr Ryan explained that the Yass River was marginal between Gundaroo and Yass - a recharge river created when Europeans arrived in the 1840s. When the settlers cleared the land, the ridgelines increased their uptake of water twentyfold; the water goes underground, hits a seam of rock, and comes up again.
"The river never dries up," Mr Ryan said. "The water quality is awful normally; it's full of minerals, and it's a very delicate ecosystem because underground water keeps the river functioning now most of the time."
Mr Ryan still hopes to sow the paddocks next week. "I won't be able to clean it all up, because there's just too much debris from the river that's not related to rubbish," he said.
He said that included perhaps 30 tonnes of willow trees swept along by the flood.
"But the debris is a natural thing," Mr Ryan continued. "The rubbish is not - and the rubbish is in the waterways, which we're drinking, which is just crazy."
Yass Valley Council have been contacted for a comment.