Fitzgeralds Catchment Group meet to discuss what is happening in the catchment, and where to in the future. Meeting is held at Warrimoo RFS Brigade station. To find out more contact Steve Barratt on 47 536 339 or Peter Chrismas on 4780 5623, or email pchrismas@bmcc.nsw.gov.au.
Tag Archives: water quality
Connected Catchments
Vale St Baramy Trap in Full Flow – June 2016
On May 2 the Leura Falls Creek and Jamison Creek Catchment Working groups came together along with Blue Mountains City Council Natural Areas and Healthy Waterways teams to do “catchment crawls” (minibus tours of the key work sites) in each other’s catchments. Residents of the Vale St end of the Leura Falls Creek catchment were also invited.
In the morning, the Leura Falls Creek tour showcased the recently constructed stormwater upgrades including the Vale St Baramy Trap and raingarden – shown below in full flow with the recent heavy rains in early June. The Jamison Creek Working Group had an opportunity to see what types of stormwater management systems will be installed in the Jamison Creek Catchment in the near future.
After lunch, a tour of Jamison Creek Catchment gave us a chance to learn about where the upgrades are planned and how they will be constructed.
The stormwater improvement projects in both catchments are an initiative between Water NSW and Blue Mountains City Council. The catchment crawl was filmed by KFM Media, Katoomba. Thanks to the tour guides, Eric Mahony and Geoffrey Smith from Blue Mountains City Council and Peter Bennet who designs the Baramy Traps. Thanks to Monica Nugent for driving the bus. And thank you to every one who came on the tour.
Vale Street – June 2016 11
Release of Council’s First Healthy Waterways Report
Long neck Turtle Photo by R Spencer
Beautiful creeks and waterways are a wonderful part of our City – but how healthy are they?
From July this year, it will be easier to find out, with the release of Council’s Blue Mountains Waterway Health Report – a user-friendly brochure showing the results of Council’s Water Quality Monitoring Program.
Since 1998, Council has regularly tested waterway health at up to 50 waterways across the City. As a result, we now have one of the richest water quality data sets in Australia, and Council uses this data to inform its catchment improvement programs.
Council regularly tests the health of our waterways at over 40 sites across the city. the diversity of waterbugs such as crayfish is an indicator of creek health.
While detailed water quality reports have been published on Council’s website since 2006, the new brochure aims to make this information readily accessible to everyone in the community. It is hoped people will be prompted to think about local waterway health and what they can do to help.
The report card shows each sample waterway in the Blue Mountains, the catchment within which it flows, and its state of ecological health (rated Excellent, Good, Fair or Poor). In the 2016 report, 53% of tested waterways are in good condition or better.
Our city is lucky to have some of Australia’s best waterways, but they are also vulnerable to pollution – especially due to stormwater runoff from urban areas.
Urban runoff is consistently identified as the number one environmental threat to our World Heritage listing and presents challenges for local drinking water catchments, Endangered Ecological Communities, threatened species and the City’s tourism reputation.
Everything that goes into our gutters and streets ends up in our creeks
Try these few simple actions to help protect our waterways from urban runoff:
- Keep pollutants out of drains (litter, soil and sand, fertilisers and pesticides, detergents, oil, animal droppings and garden waste).
- Install a rainwater tank to capture rainwater from your roof and use it regularly.
- Design your garden to allow stormwater to soak into the ground.
- Control invasive weeds on your property.
- Don’t dump fish or plants in waterways.
The Report Card will be sent to all ratepayers with Council’s newsletter from July.
To find out more about our local waterways, visit www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/waterways
Blue Mountains Stream Frog Litopria citropa – Lucy Kidson
BMCC wins NSW Excellence in Stormwater Design Award!
At a special awards dinner on Wednesday 6 April, the Leura Falls Creek Improvement project was announced as joint winner of the 2016 NSW Award for Excellence in Integrated Stormwater Design. Congratulations to all the Blue Mountains City Council staff and contractors involved in the project and the Leura Falls Creek Catchment Working Group.
Streamwatch … in the Blue Mountains
There are currently five active Streamwatch groups in the Blue Mountains: Fitzgerald Creek, Gordon Falls Creek, Leura Falls Creek, Popes Glen and South Lawson Bushcare Group.
Streamwatch is coordinated by the Australian Museum. Members of Streamwatch register with the Museum and are provided with training, water testing kits and support. The Museum also does a visit to a newly proposed site. Streamwatch groups commit to doing water testing at a regular time once a month and uploading the data onto the Streamwatch website. Groups are also encouraged to take part in the Autumn Waterbugs Watch and Spring Waterbugs Watch run by the Museum.
BMCC Bushcare Officers have done the Streamwatch training.
If your Bushcare group is keen to get involved in setting up streamwatch at or near your site please let us know. You can contact your Bushcare officer or Jenny Hill email: jhill@bmcc.nsw.gov.au
Further information can be found at http://www.streamwatch.org.au/streamwatch/
Leura Falls Creek Catchment Meeting
Meet in the foyer at 1:50pm. Receive updates on progress and participate in making plans for work in the Catchment. For more information, to confirm the venue and to RSVP, please email Jenny Hill jhill9228@gmail.com
Weeds Blitzed at Kingsford Smith Park
Gang Gang St before
On Saturday 27 February members of bushcare groups in the Leura Falls Creek Catchment and the Leura Falls Creek Catchment Working Group, came together for a weeding morning at Kingsford Smith Park. Since 2007 the group’s yearly get-together has taken place at the iconic Leura Cascades. This year, in order to tackle the source weeds in the upper part of the catchment, the groups decided to focus on Kingsford Smith Park.
The park has both historical and horticultural values and is significant to the Leura Falls Creek Catchment. It contains many noxious and environmental weeds. They are a problem not just as a source of propagating material – water, wind and bird borne – but also because weeds are a major component of the vegetation that block views into the Park. A number of formed drains enter into the Park and ground water seeps in. The groundwater has a high impact on the creek and catchment because it picks up water from the Great Western Highway, the rail corridor and Katoomba township. A creekline forms within the park, and drains through private property before entering the Vale Street wetlands and joining Leura Creek. Leura Creek flows through Leura Park and into the Leura Cascades and the National Park. There is a significant stand of Mountain Ash – Eucalyptus oreades – within the park. This stand occurs in the triangle of land between William, Gang Gang and Lovell Streets.
The work on the day focused on removing the privet hedge along Gang Gang St, weeding in the ‘oreades patch’, removing ivy from Tree Ferns, removing trad and spot weeding for noxious and environmental weeds. Team privet could probably get a Guinness Book of Records achievement for their work along Gang Gang St– the most privet removed in the shortest period of time!!
The get-together also provided an opportunity for a strong working relationship between Blue Mountains City Council’s Urban Weeds, Bushcare and Parks teams and the community bushcare groups. For all your work in the Park, many thanks go to David Whiteman and team, David Pinchers and Mark Vickers and team. To Karen Hising, Tracey Williams and Erin Hall, many thanks for the organisation of and support on the day and many thanks to the 17 bushcare volunteers for your amazing weed blitzing work. We all agreed that it was inspiring to start making a difference in this part of our precious catchment.
If you would like to find out more about Leura Falls Creek Catchment and the work that we are doing please contact Jenny Hill at jhill9228@gmail.com
“Team Privet” after a job well done
Red-crowned Toadlet at Mt Riverview Bushcare
by Elizabeth Begg, Mt Riverview Bushcare Group
pseudophryne australis found in Mt Riverview (photo courtesy of E.Begg)
A couple of months ago, I moved a treated pine log that we had dragged up from our Mt Riverview Bushcare site behind our place (it had been dumped there some time ago) to re-use in a garden bed, and found a most intriguing small frog! Or so I thought. With a black body and bright orange red markings across the crown of its head and on its body, this 2cm frog was not like anything I had seen before. A quick google returned the name of Red-crowned Toadlet. Monica quickly confirmed my thoughts. There were not many other candidates for the description small frog with black body and orange spots!
Monica’s excitement at the finding of this threatened species was infectious, and a bit more research helps us to understand why this creature is listed as vulnerable. It lives only in the Sydney basin on Hawkesbury Sandstone vegetation. This small toad needs to be near a freshwater creek – they mate in damp leaf litter, lay their eggs on the banks of the creek and are watched over by the male. The eggs hatch after heavy rainfall, when the young are well developed, and the tadpoles are washed into the creek. Such restricted habitat and specific life cycle requirements are the factors that, in a changing, disturbed environment under pressure from a rapidly changing environment threaten the viability of some of our native species.
On our next bushcare day, working in the creek bed in Magura Reserve, our youngest team member, Scott Wiezel, found some of the black taddies, already with legs, wriggling in a shallow, evaporating pond in the creek bed. He was on leech alert for us at the time. A very important job that day as we seemed to be working in a nest of them! (Though Scott’s mum, Lynn reports that she later discovered a leech in her belly button …)
The scientific name is Pseudophryne australis (Gray 1835), (Pseudo meaning similar to though not the real deal or ‘sham’; phryne meaning toad). The common name rendering of ‘toadlet’ sounds a little kinder! Our little Aussie wanna-be toad.
How did such a small creature get all the way from the creek to my back yard? Apparently they like to hide out under rocks and logs in the bush. I guess we carried it up when we brought up some of the dumped railway sleepers and treated pine logs to make our garden. Interesting isn’t it, the complexity of bush regeneration? The removal of dumped material possibly disturbed part of the habitat of this threatened species. For me it has been a gentle reminder of the care we need to have when working in the bush!
References and for more about frogs:
http://frogs.org.au/frogs/species/Pseudophryne/australis/
http://australianmuseum.net.au/red-crowned-toadlet
The Museum also has a fantastic free app to download: http://australianmuseum.net.au/frogs-field-guide
http://bie.ala.org.au/species/Pseudophryne+australis
For an excellent though detailed fact sheet: http://fieldofmarseec.nsw.edu.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/tsprofileRedcrownedToadlet.pdf
Pseudphryne australis (photo courtesy of E.Begg)
Winning the Willow War
Removing willows will help to improve creek health at the headwaters of Leura Cascades
Council, the Leura Creek Landcare Group and the South Leura Catchment Group have teamed up with the Sydney Catchment Authority (SCA) and the Greater Sydney Local Land Services (GSLLS) to realise a vision to eradicate invasive willows from the South Leura catchment.
Council is matching $17,250 in grant funding from the SCA over three years with investment from Council’s Environment Levy, including the provision of technical advice, on-the-ground support, plants and tools. A $20,000 grant from the GSLLS for 2015 will add further resources to the effort.
Willow control is part of Council’s Noxious Weeds Program, which targets noxious (highly invasive, destructive) weeds across the City. This program provides assistance for private landholders who proactively control willow on their property.
Pussy willow (Salix cinerea), was introduced in the early days of European settlement, and rapidly spread across the Blue Mountains, particularly between Mount Victoria and Hazelbrook.
Willows thrive in streams, swamps and moist forests, often becoming very dense, and their impact on waterways can be devastating – destroying habitats for fish and other animals; causing erosion and localised flooding; and depleting creek waters of oxygen, making it difficult for aquatic life. They can also spread very quickly, so early detection and control is critical.
Pussy willow seed can drift up to 100 kilometres by wind or water before taking hold at a new site — much like a bushfire can spot ahead of the main front.
The good news is that Council and the community are gradually winning the willow battle. Pussy willows are now under advanced control between Mt Victoria and Katoomba. With a systematic, comprehensive approach, it will be possible to win the willow war in the Blue Mountains.
Council is encouraging residents to report pussy willow sightings to Council’s Noxious Weeds team, on 4780 5000.
Other weeds currently being targeted by Council’s Noxious Weeds control program include Gorse, Broom, Boneseed, African Olive, Lantana and Cabomba.
Find out more about weeds in your local area or Council’s Weed Management Strategy at:
www.bmcc.nsw.gov.au/weedmanagement
Waterbug Watch is happening in the Gully
WaterBug Watch is a citizen science project developed by the Australia Museums Streamwatch team to discover what freshwater invertebrates live in your area.
The Sydney region has been modified by urbanisation and human activities. This has resulted in a loss of ecosystem integrity and consequently degraded water quality in aquatic environments. The impact on these aquatic environments has affected the abundance and diversity freshwater invertebrates across Sydney.
The project aims to apprentice students and the community into scientific techniques and research.
The project involves sampling your local freshwater creek or waterway between Saturday 6 – Sunday 21 September 2014. The gully will be doing the sampling on the 7th September at the workday.
Waterbug watch is open to community organisations and school
For questions or enquiries, please email the Streamwatch team on streamwatch@austmus.gov.au or follow us on Twitter@StreamwatchNSW