2016-02-02 Planning & Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                        2 FEBRUARY 2016


These EVs need to be protected from the effects of habitat alteration, waste releases,
contaminated runoff and changed flows to ensure that aquatic ecosystems remain healthy
and waterways are safe for community use
The WQOs are long-term goals for water quality management. They are technically-derived
numbers, measures or narrative statements regarding particular indicators of water quality,
such as:
   physical indicators of water quality (e.g. turbidity, suspended sediment, temperature)
   chemical indicators (e.g. nitrogen, phosphorus);
   biological indicators (e.g. macro invertebrates, fish);
   pathogens; and
   measures of waterway condition (e.g. erosion, riparian vegetation extent and
     condition).
The WQOs are used to assess whether the EVs are being maintained. They apply to
receiving waters such as rivers, streams, wetlands, lakes, aquifers, estuaries and coastal
waters and are not end-of-pipe objectives.
(Source: Department of Environment and Heritage Protection, Environmental values and
water quality objectives under the Environmental Protection (Water) Policy 2009 fact sheet).
EVs and WQOs provide government, industry and other groups with a single set of agreed
water quality targets for statutory and non-statutory planning and water quality management.
These EVs and WQOs support current and planned future investments by government,
industry and the community in built and natural environments, and meet the increasing
public expectation that governments will protect the State’s waterways from pollution and
minimise the environmental, economic and social risks (including public health) associated
with documented declines in water quality across Queensland.
Figure 1 below provides an overview of linkages between EVs and WQOs and
planning/development assessment activities for a selection of statutory and non-statutory
categories of use.




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