ACT Rowing Association

ACTRA Bulletin 19 February 2009 NOTICE TO ACTRA CLUBS REGARDING TODAY'S MEDIA REPORTS

Media reports today have questioned the decision of the ACT Rowing Association to continue with running the regatta last weekend despite advice from the NationalCapital Authority (NCA) of high blue green algae levels in Lake Burley Griffin. The ACT Rowing Association places a high priority on the health and wellbeing of participants at its events.      The decision to proceed was only made after consultation with the NCA. The NCA's Events Officer confirmed by email on Friday that event organisers "have been advised and have made adequate risk management precautions to enable boatingevents to proceed". The Heads of Rowing of all participating schools and clubs were given the full NCA advice about the algae, informed of the NCA's clearance to proceed with the regatta, and provided with the ACT Rowing Association's risk management plan for the event. Each school and club made its own decision based on this advice about whether or not to participate. If at any stage the Association had considered the risk to competitors to be unacceptable the event would have been stopped. On Sunday the NCA's Acting Chief Executive came down to the regatta to inform the Association that the weekend's dragon boat regatta had been called off and to urge the Association to do the same. By then the rowing regatta had been running for oneand a half days and was in its final bracket of races. The Association understands from the NCA that none of the adverse test results were measured at the Yarramundi Reach regatta course. NCA testing conducted the day after the regatta showed that the algal level had dropped significantly from the previous week.  The ACT Rowing Association will be working with the NCA to ensure future testing is done in a robust and timely manner, and that future testing includes readings for the regatta course to minimise the community misinformation and resulting confusion that has arisen this week.