Richmond River
Water Quality and River Flow Objectives
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At a Glance |
This section gives the Water Quality Objectives (WQOs) and the River Flow Objectives (RFOs) for the Richmond River catchment, which should be used to develop plans and actions affecting water quality and river health. Only the priority RFOs are listed in this section, but the remaining objectives still need to be considered when developing flow management plans or dealing with particular local river conditions.
Town water supply subcatchments
Streams in town water supply subcatchments typically feed into a town's water supply storage. In many cases the catchment may be declared as specially protected to minimise the land-use impacts on water quality.
Map: These subcatchments are coloured light blue on the map.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting Information
- This category includes the Rocky Creek Dam and its catchment and Emigrant Creek Dam and its catchment.
- To ensure long-term achievement of the WQOs, existing land management programs aimed at maintaining or improving drinking water quality should continue and be reviewed. All pollutant sources in the catchment that have the potential to degrade drinking water quality should be identified and managed.
- Augmentation of town water supplies to meet the objectives will not be required. However, if augmentation for other reasons is proposed, appropriate levels of protection of low flows should be determined on a case-by-case basis.
- Local factors include maintaining natural flows from springs (groundwater); the effects of land management on volumes and times of runoff, particularly in droughts; flow needs of ecosystems and people within the area; reliability of town supplies; and needs of ecosystems and people downstream.
- RFO Make water available for unforeseen events applies to Emigrant Creek Dam, which has a controlled release capability that could be used to provide flows to address contingent events, including algal blooms.
Mainly forested areas
Streams in mainly forested areas are often valued for their conservation or recreational values. They often have relatively natural flows and water quality. Many are in national parks or state forests.
Map: The objectives apply to streams running through areas coloured green on the map (state forests, national parks and nature reserves); and through other forested areas, if any are defined locally.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting Information
- This category includes the Toonumbar, Bungawalbin and Whian Whian state forests and parts of Nightcap National Park. In many places, forested areas have agricultural land uses along the upstream section of the river. Management of upstream impacts will be needed to achieve or maintain the high water quality levels and close to natural flow patterns expected in forested areas, particularly for drinking water and natural variability in flows.
- There may be locations where Aboriginal communities collect freshwater aquatic foods. NSW Health recommends against the consumption of raw shellfish harvested on a non-commercial basis and local communities should be made aware of the risks involved.
- RFO Manage groundwater for ecosystems applies in areas of groundwater use.
- There are few barriers instream in waterways in this category, but RFO Minimise effects of weirs and other structures is included in case instream structures are proposed in the future.
Waterways affected by urban development
Streams within urban areas are frequently substantially modified and carry poor quality stormwater. Local communities are often keen to see such streams returned to more natural conditions.
Map: Urban development areas are shown in orange on the map.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting Information
- This category includes the urban centres of Lismore, Casino, Kyogle, Ballina, Evans Head, Woodburn and Coraki.
- In some urban waterways aquatic ecosystems are considerably modified. A return to pristine aquatic ecosystems in these areas is unlikely and impractical. However, water quality conditions for existing ecosystems can be improved greatly for the benefit of local species and broader catchment health. Data from other local aquatic ecosystems of similar type, in areas that are not urbanised, may provide achievable criteria for these modified aquatic ecosystems.
- Existing programs include the Urban Stormwater Management Program, which includes a stormwater education program, the development of stormwater plans and series of stormwater trust grants.
Uncontrolled streams
Uncontrolled streams and waterbodies are not those that are in estuaries or the other categories. Their flow patterns are largely natural but may have been altered to a limited degree.
Map: These streams are shown as blue lines on the map.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting Information
- There may be locations where Aboriginal communities collect freshwater aquatic foods. NSW Health recommends against the consumption of raw shellfish harvested on a non-commercial basis and local communities should be made aware of the risks involved.
- Water is diverted to the Brunswick River catchment from the upper Wilson River for Mullumbimby town water supply and, intermittently, for hydro-electric power generation.
Regulated rivers
These rivers have large dams supplying irrigation water (and usually town and industrial water) for substantial distances downstream. They are defined as section 22c streams under the Water Act. Flows are typically supplemented during the irrigation season resulting in fairly stable and unnaturally high water levels. River flow is substantially reduced during non or low irrigation seasons and in high-flow periods.
Map: These rivers are shown as yellow lines on the map.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting Information
- This category includes the river reaches below Toonumbar Dam on Iron Pot Creek and Eden Creek to their confluence with the Richmond River.
Estuaries
Being dominated by saline conditions ,estuaries have hydraulic and water quality characteristics, and potential problems, that are often very different from those of freshwater systems.
Map: Estuaries are coloured purple on the map.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting Information
- This category includes the Richmond Estuary and adjacent coastal areas, such as Tuckean Swamp.
- The Richmond Shellfish Quality Assurance Program conducts regular monitoring of estuarine water quality as part of actions to support commercial shellfish production.
- Freshwater systems, such as Lake Ainsworth, occurring in these saline-dominated areas need to have their natural character protected.
- Parts of the lower estuarine reaches are underlain by potential acid sulfate soils, which should not be disturbed. Dredging and disturbance of bottom sediments (i.e. those below water level) can also have major impacts in these areas.
This page was published 1 May 2006
About the Objectives
