Nambucca CMC community water quality monitoring project

Abstract

The increasing pressure and lack of knowledge on the water quality of the Nambucca River, Deep Creek and Oyster Creek catchments had become a matter of concern for the Nambucca CMG. Hence, in 1998 the CMG initiated a base-line water quality monitoring project to address the water quality information gaps in these catchments. This has been achieved by collecting water samples from 29 sites throughout the catchments once a month. The samples were analysed for temperature, pH, turbidity, conductivity, TSS, TP, TN, nitrate, nitrite and faecal coliforms. The results were compared to seven of the ANZECC (1992) environmental values guidelines and other similar studies.

The study also involved sampling flood events, macroinvertebrates and heavy metals in the catchments studied. The flood event results displayed a dramatic rise in all parameters during the first flush and then slowly returned to ambient conditions.