2015-04-28 Planning and Organisation Committee Agenda

PLANNING & ORGANISATION COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                          28 APRIL 2015


2.   Noosa Shire Waterways

The Noosa Shire is traversed by the Noosa River Catchment as well as parts of the Mary
River Catchment. All waterways in both these catchments are highly valued for the lifestyle
and natural environment attributes their waterways support.

The Noosa River Environmental Values and Water Quality Objectives, as well as the Mary
River Environmental Values and Water Quality Objectives, both published by the
Department of Environment and Heritage Protection in July 2010 outline the recommended
water quality criteria for different parts of the Noosa and Mary River Catchments
respectively. This recommended water quality criteria is referred to hereafter as EVWQO.
The EVWQO intend to ensure healthy ecological balances for native plant, fish, animal
populations as well as human recreation purposes.

3.   Protecting the Environmental Values and Water Quality Objectives

Noosa Council has responsibility to demonstrate their decisions made to maintain the
EVWQO of both Noosa and Mary River catchments. Additionally, the Environmental
Protection Act and its subordinate legislation require Local Governments to include
measures within the Planning Scheme to maintain relevant EVWQO.

The Planning Scheme manages land use activities throughout the catchment and therefore it
is prudent that it adequately considers how the EVWQO will be affected by developments on
a catchment wide scale.

As the first steps towards ensuring the EVWQO would be met throughout the Noosa Shire,
the Noosa Plan and State Planning Policies adopted the current best practices available at
the time. These best practices combined research and computer modelling technology to
determine the most cost and land efficient methods to remove pollutants from urban
development properties. Using this information, targets were developed for the load of
pollutants considered reasonable for individual developments to remove prior to discharge of
stormwater from their property using Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) methods.

WSUD does not remove all the additional pollutants generated by a development, but are
sized and selected to achieve the best cost to efficiency ratio. This ratio is 80% reduction in
total Suspended Solids, 45% reduction in Total Nitrogen, 60% Reduction in Total
Phosphorous and 100% reduction in Gross Pollutants compared to if there was no WSUD
incorporated into the development.

These four pollutant constituents are important to manage for the reasons outlined in the
table below:

Constituent                  Reasons for management
Total Suspended Solids       Suspended solids are a charged particle, like a magnet, and are able
                             to temporarily bond with other microscopic particles and trace metals
                             with the opposite charge, such as fertiliser, iron etc then also carry
                             these elements into the waterway.

                             When in salt water it is common for suspended solids to sink to the
                             river floor leading to layers of silt rather than clean sand in previously
                             sandy areas. Over time, suspended solids accumulate on creek and
                             river beds, smother seagrasses or offshore reefs or just affect general
                             amenity.




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