Karuah River and Great Lakes
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 Karuah River and Great Lakes catchments, which should be used in developing plans and actions affecting river health. Only the priority RFOs are listed in this section but the remaining objectives need to be considered when developing flow management plans or dealing with particular local river conditions.
Town water supply subcatchments
The streams in town water supply subcatchments or groundwater aquifers 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: The objectives apply to streams and major aquifers in areas coloured light blue on the map.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting information
- In this catchment, this category includes the Tomago sandbeds, Tea Gardens/Hawks Nest groundwater supply and Tomaree Peninsula groundwater supply (Nelson Bay, Fingal Bay and adjacent areas).
- Prioritise issues and management actions (using reports such as the DLWC's 1998 Aquifer Risk Assessment Report), and implement the NSW Groundwater Policy (DLWC 1997a, 1998b).
- To ensure long-term achievement of these WQOs, existing land-management programs aimed at maintaining or improving drinking water quality should continue and be reviewed. These include efforts to reduce the amount of pollutants (such as nutrients, salts, and persistent chemicals and heavy metals) that reach the groundwater aquifers from surface land uses. It also includes ensuring the rate of removal of water does not exceed recharge, otherwise saline water may be drawn in from the coast or estuary.
- Raw water sourced from aquifers will need to be of high enough quality for available treatment to be effective.
- Not all parts of large river systems can be protected from human activity. See 'Uncontrolled streams' and other river categories, below, for objectives that apply to surface and groundwater drinking water offtakes in the catchment.
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 Wang Wauk, Myall River, Bachelor and Wallingat state forests and Myall Lakes National Park.
- In some areas, this category will 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 WQO drinking water and RFO Maintain natural flow variability
- 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
These are streams within urban areas that are frequently substantially modified and carry poor quality stormwater. Local communities are often keen to see such streams returned to more natural conditions.
Map: These areas are shown in orange on the map.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting information
- This category includes Forster/Tuncurry, Nelson Bay, Fingal Bay, Tea Gardens, Stroud, Buladelah and Karuah urban areas.
- 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.
- Other significant issues in these areas include the impact of septic systems, effluent irrigation and reuse, exfiltration and acid-sulfate runoff.
Uncontrolled streams
These uncontrolled streams and waterbodies are not in estuaries or the other categories. Their flow patterns are largely natural but may have been altered to a limited degree.
Map: Uncontrolled streams are shown as blue lines on the map.
Water Quality Objectives
Protection of:
River Flow Objectives
Supporting information
- This category incorporates significant town water supply sources, with the Stroud water supply weir on the Karuah River, and the Crawford River weir (Bulahdelah water supply). Water sharing plans (WSPs) plans will need to take into account protection of these important supplies.
- 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.
- Blue-green algae is a potential problem within the catchment, with an algal bloom occurring in the Karuah River at Stroud in 1998.
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 Karuah, Myall, Wang Wauk and Wallamba estuaries together with Port Stephens, Bombah Broadwater, Myall Lake, Smiths Lake, Wallis Lake and adjacent coastal areas.
- All commercially harvested shellfish and mussels in NSW are harvested in accordance with the NSW Shellfish Program.
- Dredging and drainage works can have major impacts, since much of the lakes and the lower reaches of the creeks are underlain by potential acid sulfate soils, which should not be disturbed. Acid sulfate problems currently occur in the Anna Bay and Hawks Nest areas.
- Estuary management plans are being implemented for the Karuah and Myall Rivers estuary and Port Stevens.
This page was published 1 May 2006
About the Objectives
