2021-12-07 Planning & Environment Committee Meeting Agenda - Updated

PLANNING & ENVIRONMENT COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                7 DECEMBER 2021


REPORT
The Queensland Government Department of Environment and Science (DES) has recently been
engaging with Council to complete its review of the Environmental Protection Policy prescribed
Environmental Values (EVs) and Water Quality Objectives (WQOs) for the Noosa River Basin.
The EVs and WQOs are fundamental to the Queensland Government consideration of any impacts
on water quality arising from changes in land use and are also used as part of the basis for healthy
Land Water (HLW) report card rating for the Noosa River.
Council officers have been meeting with DES officers to review the most recent material, and in
addition, a workshop between DES Officers and representatives of the Noosa River Stakeholder
Advisory Committee (NRSAC) was undertaken on the 5th November to both gain an appreciation
of the program and seek stakeholder views.
1.    Environmental Value Areas
The Noosa River Basin is divided into EV Areas that prescribe human, industrial, agricultural,
natural and indigenous values of significance to the area. The EV Area are supported by specific
WQOs.
The proposed map of EV Areas is included as Attachment 1.
Key comments prepared to date from internal technical review and discussion with NRSAC
members include:
     support for the creation of a specific EV Area for the Burgess Creek catchment, and support
      for the proposed Secondary Recreation EV for this area,
     consideration is warranted for a Primary Recreation EV at the mouth of Burgess Creek due
      to high resident and dog interactions. Preference to include a new sub zone in this area for
      the inclusion of Primary Recreation EV.
     opportunity to refine the Northern Noosa EV Area to also include the natural areas of the
      Noosa North Shore (instead of inclusion in Kin Kin and Cootharaba EV Area) the to reflect
      its predominant naturalness
     opportunity to refine the Weyba EV to also include the industrial area west of Eumundi Road,
      to ensure consistent treatment of the Noosaville industrial area
     Clarity around the proposed pink colour designation of Noosa Waters Canal Estate to clarify
      the intent as a constructed estuary of moderate disturbance, and furthermore desirable
      consideration of a Primary Contact EV
2.    Water Quality Objectives
WQOs are prepared for each of the EV Areas, and provide objectives for water quality parameters
including phosphorous, turbidity, suspended solids, nitrogen and dissolved oxygen.
In discussions with DES Officers, they have noted that existing 2010 Water Quality Objectives are
based on criteria and water quality relevant to Victoria and Tasmania, due to the absence of
sufficient local data at that time. They have sought to ensure that new water quality targets reflect
the circumstances of the environment that the WQO applies to rather than interstate data, and
have used as much data as possible to establish long term trends for water quality specific to the
Noosa River Catchment.
Council staff have undertaken a detailed analysis of the proposed changes to the WQO as included
in Attachment 2 as outlined below:
High Flow and Low Flow WQOs
DES is also proposing to introduce high flow and low flow WQO. This is to reflect that water quality
naturally changes in different flow regimes. This is a change from the 2010 WQO and as such,
2010 Water Quality Objectives for high flow scenarios do not exist for comparison to proposed
objectives. To facilitate assessment and demonstrate how the proposed objectives relate to
historical high and low flow water quality, the state government provided the 20th, 50th, and 80th


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