In most areas of Australia the marine ecosystem is demonstrably degrading under our self-anointed "world's best" management. This is counter-intuitively happening at a time of improving tools for water quality monitoring, expanding scientific knowledge of the impacts of myriad water pollutants on the health, productivity and function of marine ecosystems and improved technology for water management. The potential benefits that science can offer to civil society are being lost through scientific myopia, industry capture, dysfunctional non-responsive governance and misdirected personal values. The history of consequences of water pollution on the native oyster, Saccostrea glomerata, will be explored right up to recent apocalyptic disease outbreaks. Opportunities for course correction will be offered such as formation of multi-disciplinary teams, actively considering multiple working hypotheses, re-igniting civil scientific debate, and advocating in the public interest for change. If not you, who?