Smoking ceremony for Northern Rivers team

Winslow’s team in Northern NSW recently held a Welcome to Country and smoking ceremony at the Killarney Park Project near Lismore.

Uncle Gilbert, from the Yaegl and Widjabul tribes of the Bundjalung Nation, conducted the smoking ceremony to cleanse the area and people of bad spirits, and to promote the protection and well-being of visitors, especially Indigenous staff who are not from that country.

Uncle Gilbert shared stories to ensure that the Winslow team respects and understands the ancestors, tribes and clans that walked before us in the area in which they are working.

The team – Senior Project Manager Darcy Chapman, Senior Foreman Patrick Fhay, Foreman Nick Shannon, Engineers Conor Walshe, Jameson Wilson and – have been working on the six-stage site since November.

The team has overcome significant rain and environmental issues to ensure the project is seamless, and it was able to complete all earth works before the Christmas shutdown even with a week of wet weather.

“We have thoroughly designed and adjusted our ErSed (Erosion and Sediment) plan to account for this wet weather allowing our project to have minimal down time and zero council/EPA breaches,” Conor said.

They have also ensured minimal impact to native wildlife and retained trees.

“We successfully saved a hive of native bees from a tree marked to be removed ,and numerus native snakes and lizards,” Conor said.

The project will keep the team busy for the rest of the year.