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Georges Bay water quality report card
Report cards can be a burden at school but when it's a report card on environmental health, Georges Bay in Southern Tasmania is near the top of the class after receiving a 'B' for water quality.
This may surprise some local residents, given the pressures on the bay such as dairies, horticulture, grazing, forestry, and urbanisation, while in the waterways and the bay itself there are river outlets, oyster farms, recreational and commercial fishers - not to mention the proximity of the St Helens township.
But it passed the test, which was conducted in 2004-05 by the Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute at the University of Tasmania.
Funding
The project was funded through the NRM North regional group with more than $300,000 from the Australian Government and the State Government.
Activities and achievements
Kate Thorn of Break O'Day Council said the report covered water quality issues such as heavy metals, pesticides and nutrients, species and habitats like seagrass, and physical parameters such as depth, tide and flow characteristics.
"The report was based on more than 20 years of data collected by the oyster industry dating back to 1983," Kate explained. "The industry was a pioneer in water monitoring, with other monitoring of varying degrees following in the mid 1990s such as Waterwatch and Landcare groups, schools, researchers and the Break O'Day Council. However this is the first time all the information has been brought together."
Tasmanians now have a more accurate picture of the overall health of the bay, which is home to many different types of birds, mammals, reptiles and frogs, including the threatened Green-and-Gold Frog. The report also offers recommendations for more frequent, coordinated monitoring to provide better information about the effect of extreme conditions such as major flood events.
"The 'B' rating essentially says: 'for an estuary which is subject to human impacts, this one is just a notch under as good as it could be'," Kate said. "The bay has healthy seagrass beds, nutrient concentrations are mostly low, no toxicants have been observed in water or oyster flesh samples and bacterial levels in the estuary are low.
"However, the report pointed out parameters such as turbidity and invertebrates, which have either not been measured consistently or for which we do not even have a baseline."
In addition, the project delivered an automated water quality monitoring station for the bay, along with an interactive map, which features underwater video footage of different marine habitats and 3D flythroughs showing bathymetry (depth) of the bay.
More information
- Kate Thorn, Break O'Day Council: 0427 448 018 or Kate.Thorn@bodc.tas.gov.au
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