2017-09-18 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                  18 SEPTEMBER 2017


Do you have any comments on data sources or methods used to develop the guidelines
Comments on the methods used to develop the guideline is provided to question 1.
The entire data set timeline, or annual 20, 50, 80th %iles are required to confirm that the water
quality within Moderately Disturbed catchments has not infact been declining over the past 10
years. It is recommended that a quality check be published on the dataset using statistical
analysis to confirm there is no declining trend in the water quality over the past 10 years that may
skew the results provided.
In relation to data sources, the proposal assumes that water quality over the past 10 years is not
causing stress to the receiving environment. No evidence has been provided in support to
confirm this. For Noosa, it is proposed to change the water quality in Southern Noosa Draining
Coastal Freshwaters (i.e. flowing to High Ecological Value Waters in Burgess Creek and creeks
flowing to Eastern Beaches). Aerial photography clearly demonstrates that the low nutrient
dependant vegetation that aligns Burgess Creek is suffering stress as a result of weed invasions
that have a competitive advantage in higher nutrient environments. For this reason, the proposed
changes to Southern Noosa Draining Burgess Creek water quality to limits that are still in excess
of the needs of the oligorophic receiving environment are not supported. The water quality criteria
for catchments should reflect the ecological needs of the entire catchment, not the water quality
that has caused environmental degradation over the past 10 years.
Over the past 10 years which the data has been collected, there has been many changes in Best
Management Practice for land use, including refinement of Water Sensitive Urban Design and
cropping practice. Data may have been collected from catchments that 100% incorporate best
practice and others that have none. Setting the criteria based on the condition of the waters
without ensuring the contributing catchment is incorporating best practice, means that although
the criteria will facilitate for water quality to not get worse than the existing situation, and facilitate
for investment for improvement 50% of the time, it does not provide an indication of the best
condition waters in a moderately disturbed catchment can be.
The State government has invested money in the development of e-source water models to
inform the effect of land use practices on the receiving water quality and guide the updated South
East Queensland Report Card Scores. The e-source model includes scenarios where it is
possible to coarsely estimate the water quality that would result throughout different parts of the
catchment under different land use practice/ investment scenarios. These scenarios include
investing unlimited funds to provide best land management practice to 100% of the catchments,
50% investment, only investing in urban areas vs rural areas etc. The scenarios can also be run
over different weather patterns experienced over longer than the past 10 years. The results are
coarse but will be useful to crosscheck whether the existing and proposed water quality values
for moderately disturbed catchments are achievable under differing land use practices or not, and
possible socio-economic impacts of compliance to ensure the water quality objectives are met.
The 10 year dataset was collected primarily during La Nina Climatic Conditions. These conditions
generate more rainfall than El Nino conditions. It is recommended DSITI scrutinise the data sets
collected in HEV areas to determine whether ambient water quality conditions have any
significant change relevant to the Southern Oscillation Index. Where significant changes are
observed, it is considered that the recent 10 year dataset is only applicable to La Nina conditions
and that water quality objectives use e-source or other data to set objectives for El Nino
conditions.
Do you hold water quality data of potential relevance to the project?
Noosa Council officers are yet to provide all available data. Noosa Council does not support
progressing to endorsement of the proposed changes until the water quality monitoring datasets
from Noosa and our community groups have been integrated and implications of any changes to
water quality criteria are considered and agreed to by Noosa Council.




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