Warrnambool resident Colleen Hughson finds submarine flare at Terry's Beach, bomb squad and military called.

UNEXPECTED: Warrnambool resident Colleen Hughson found a submarine flare at Terry's Beach. Picture: Chris Doheny
A Saturday night community cleanup resulted in the bomb squad and military being contacted, after one volunteer unwittingly unearthed a 60-year-old submarine flare.
Beach Patrol's Colleen Hughson said she was cleaning near Terry's Beach on Saturday ahead of the 'Spring Clean Your Patch Event' when she came across an unfamiliar metal object.

"I found this thing yesterday that looked like a cannister and I didn't know what it was," Ms Hughson said.
"We were cleaning up at Terry's Beach last night and I took it home and I put it on Facebook asking if anyone knew what it was.
"This morning, I was doing some searching online and I came across something that looked similar and it said 'if you find this, do not touch it, call the police or the military immediately'.

"It didn't have any writing on it, so I thought I better contact the police about it. I sent them through some photos and then the bomb squad called me.
"They told me to get everyone out of the house and warn the neighbours. They told me to sit tight and they would treat it like a bomb.
"They told me they might have to close down my whole street. I was freaking out. "They called back and said it wasn't a bomb and I could go home. Turns out it was asubmarine flare, and the military had left Melbourne and were coming to pick it up."
The flare was collected by Australian Defence Force's explosives team just after 4pm today.

Colleen Hughson talks about the plastic litter on their local beach Blacks beach as being the worst she had ever seen.

Warrnambool BeachPatrol is in the news again with their leader Colleen Hughson  discovering a guey sea snot on rocks along the beach they clean.   Experts think it is caused by pollution being dumped into the ocean. But no one is owning up to it.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-07-27/sea-snot-fears-for-warrnambool-in-south-west-victoria/100315192

CREATIVE MESSAGING: Beach Patrol volunteer Genevieve Bale installs a stencil depicting a southern right whale on a storm water drain near Worm Bay Road. A volunteer environment group has turned to street art, installing a 'stencil trail' along Worm Bay Road in an effort to reduce the volume of pollution flowing into surrounding waterways.

Warrnambool East Primary School inspired the five stencils, each featuring local fauna such as penguins, southern right whales and leafy sea-dragons.  Developed in tandem with a local graphic designer and Coastcare Victoria, the creations were installed on storm water drains to remind the public street litter often travelled through outlets and into rivers and oceans.

Group volunteer Colleen Hughson said she hoped the project would become a tourist attraction, while also reminding the public that "pollution in our waterways affects all of us".  "Water flowing down storm water drains travels to the nearest creek, river or directly to the sea. Most storm water drains do not have filters to stop the litter from discharging into the ocean," she said.  Beach Patrol has already removed over 12,000 cigarette butts and more than 9000 pieces of plastic packaging from surrounding river mouths and beaches over two years.

After  a big on shore storm, there was a lot of plastic rubbish blown up on to the Port Melbourne beaches.  Channel 9 news came and interviewed Ramona and Ross on it.

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On November 20th, 2020 Victorian Marine & Coastal Awards 2020 - Celebrating marine and coastal excellence were announced over a zoom webinar. The 2020 Awards highlight the importance of the community and partnerships in making sure the many values of Victoria’s coastal and marine areas are safeguarded for the future. The awards were announced by Hon. Lily D'Ambrosio, Minister for Energy, Environment and Climate Change.

Beach Patrol 3280-3284 won the 'Inspiring community engagement and education' award. Beach Patrol 3280-3284/Colleen Hughson was nominated for the award by DELWP Natural Environment Programs Officer, Mandy Watson (Barwon south west Victoria). The nomination was for the community leadership during the 2017 Nurdle spill and the ongoing work of Beach Patrol is removing plastic off our local beaches and educating the community about marine debris.

We were interviewed about our Tide line survey of plastic rubbish that was washing out of the Bay.  We were concluding 5 years of survey to show the state of plastic pollution  over 28 categories in the Port Philip Bay. Thanks to Ping Publicity for arranging this

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Friends of Bayside Roads, Hampton Beachpatrol and Love Our street 3188 are just some of the volunteer groupsworking hard along side councisl efforts to keep Bayside beautiful.

Taking part in a local litter clean-up event is not only beneficial for your community and the environment , but its great for you well-being.  Susie Parker runs the comminity group LOS 3204 and organises a monthly clean up in Bentleigh, Mc Kinnon or Ormond.  "It's a feel good thing" she said.

Congratulations to 3198 Seaford Beach Patrol, who received a $1,000 Environmental Sustainability Grant through Council’s Community and Business Support Grant Program.