Interviewer: Sue Rosen

 Words: 128,600

 Date: April - May 1992

This oral history project was commissioned in 1991 by the Water Board and consists of 16 interviews with long term residents of the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment about their knowledge of the river and the changes they have witnessed. Starting upstream they are Dick Nixon, Bruce Ferguson and Jim Drinnan from Camden, John Crace  and John Downes from Cobbitty, Chris Niccol and Ted Foster on Emu Plains and Penrith, Arthur Parkes from Richmond, Fred Smith and Russell Mitchell from Wilberforce, Athol Kemp and Harold Hall from Ebenezer, Chester Smith from Cambridge Reach, Nana and Albert Jurd from Maroota, Frank Laughton of Laughtondale and John Watkins from One Tree Reach.

They are concerned with changes in the environment that they had observed over their lifetimes. Some were able to tell stories related by their forebears, some were of the  4th  and 5th generation in the area. They talk of changes in water quality, fish species, water plants and the course of the channel. They also comment on the causes of the changes that they have witnessed.