2022-11-14 GC Agenda - Item 3 - Attachment 1 - Draft Eastern Beaches Foreshore Management Plan

14. Coastal creeks and stormwater
The lowest reaches of several un-named and named coastal creeks and drainage lines cross the
Eastern Beaches foreshores reserves and beaches and discharge into the Coral Sea. Many of
these receive stormwater from the surrounding developments, roads and buildings. Burgess Creek
also receives treated discharge from the Unitywater Noosa Coastal Sewage Treatment Plant
(STP), which treats the sewage from Noosa’s coastal development. Large quantities of stormwater
from surrounding developments, buildings and roads is also discharged directly into foreshore
reserves and other reserves.


Ecosystem service benefit
Creeks and natural areas that receive stormwater and STP discharges from surrounding private
and public properties are providing ecosystem service benefits to the community. They facilitate
urban development by taking the increased, concentrated runoff that urban development inevitably
produces. Stormwater drains allow the rapid movement of water off roads, improving road function
and safety. The natural areas that receive the stormwater can help protect the broader
environment by filtering and slowing the discharge.

However, many traditional stormwater management approaches and infrastructure can impact on
the environmental and social values of the receiving creeks, natural areas and the wider
environment, particularly where stormwater management has not kept pace with increased urban
flows from new development.


The impacts of stormwater and STP discharge
Stormwater inputs are more concentrated, have more volume and are delivered more quickly than
natural flows, which increase the volume, velocity and peak height of creeks after storms. In
Burgess Creek this increased and concentrated flow can cause erosion and sedimentation,
deepen and widen flowlines and cause landslips. Stormwater also often carries nutrients, weed
seeds and other pollutants into the creek.

Where stormwater is discharged into natural areas away from creeks it can cause erosion,
sedimentation and weed infestations from the seeds and nutrients in the stormwater.

There is community concern about the creek mouths causing erosion to the frontal dunes. Other
community members are concerned about stormwater, rubbish and possibly polluted water running
across beaches, particularly in high beach pedestrian traffic areas. In some places mobile creek
mouths affects beach accesses and access onto, and along, the beach.


Burgess Creek
Burgess Creek and Burgess Creek Bushland Reserve is an example of a receiving coastal creek
and natural area that provides significant ecosystem benefits to the Noosa community and the
wider environment. This impacts on environmental and social values here, but the creek and
surrounding bushland still retains environmental and social values. The area along the creek and
the creek mouth is popular for walkers, nature lovers and surfers who traverse the reserve to
access the beach.

Since urban development and associated stormwater starting in the 1960s and the STP was
opened in 1986, the wetlands in the Burgess Creek catchment have absorbed and filtered the
urban runoff and treated water. However, the treated water and stormwater discharge into Burgess
Creek has significantly changed the creek and adjacent wetlands – the amount, duration and
consistency of flow has dramatically increased, as has the area of permanently inundated land.

Eastern Beaches Foreshore Management Plan – Draft (V4 26.9.22 – for public consultation)   Page 39