Local newspaper Jimboomba Times is now available online and have reported on this environmental isue here.
Senior member of the Healthy Waterways scientific expert panel Professor Rod Connolly presented the results to the southern region audience at the Gold Coast.
"With Logan we saw a slight improvement which came from a slight reduction in the levels of sediment and nutrients in the river," he said.
"The message for Logan is that what council and landowners are doing is excellent but we need to be working harder on two things.
"The first is the need for better processes in the development of greenfield sites, if we want healthy waterways we need to prevent sediment from escaping into our rivers.
"The second thing refers to rural areas where we are seeing a change from pastoral activity to all sorts of other land uses and again we need to ensure the sediment created by this change does not make it into the river.
"Planting bankside vegetation is one way of doing this but it is important for both council and landowners to take responsibility.
"Council's recent investment in sewerage treatment plant upgrades has been one of the most significant factors in improving the health of its waterways and hopefully it will result in further improvements."
Professor Connolly said he had considered the Albert Catchment to be in reasonably good condition but that the drop from an A- to a B- was a surprise.
"This is a meaningful decrease but at this point I couldn't jump in and say what the causes are," he said.
"We need to do more detective work to find out what has gone wrong before we can go down that route.
"Overall I would like to see more investment in waterways and we need to look at the new bulk water authorities to contribute a large fraction of the pie.
"More support for landowners and catchment groups would also be welcome."
Asked what impact new urban cities at Yarrabilba and Flagstone might have, Professor Connolly said as long as Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) principals were followed, there was no need for a negative impact on waterways.
"The history of south-east-Queensland shows that when you have substantial number of people moving to new developments there is a decrease in the health of the streams and estuaries," he said.
"There are things that can be one to prevent this however and it just depends on how much the community wants to dedicate to the health of our waterways."
Senior member of the Healthy Waterways scientific expert panel Professor Rod Connolly presented the results to the southern region audience at the Gold Coast.
“With Logan we saw a slight improvement which came from a slight reduction in the levels of sediment and nutrients in the river,” he said.
“The message for Logan is that what council and landowners are doing is excellent but we need to be working harder on two things.
“The first is the need for better processes in the development of greenfield sites, if we want healthy waterways we need to prevent sediment from escaping into our rivers.
“The second thing refers to rural areas where we are seeing a change from pastoral activity to all sorts of other land uses and again we need to ensure the sediment created by this change does not make it into the river.
“Planting bankside vegetation is one way of doing this but it is important for both council and landowners to take responsibility.
“Council’s recent investment in sewerage treatment plant upgrades has been one of the most significant factors in improving the health of its waterways and hopefully it will result in further improvements.”
Professor Connolly said he had considered the Albert Catchment to be in reasonably good condition but that the drop from an A- to a B- was a surprise.
“This is a meaningful decrease but at this point I couldn’t jump in and say what the causes are,” he said.
“We need to do more detective work to find out what has gone wrong before we can go down that route.
“Overall I would like to see more investment in waterways and we need to look at the new bulk water authorities to contribute a large fraction of the pie.
“More support for landowners and catchment groups would also be welcome.”
Asked what impact new urban cities at Yarrabilba and Flagstone might have, Professor Connolly said as long as Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) principals were followed, there was no need for a negative impact on waterways.
“The history of south-east-Queensland shows that when you have substantial number of people moving to new developments there is a decrease in the health of the streams and estuaries,” he said.
“There are things that can be one to prevent this however and it just depends on how much the community wants to dedicate to the health of our waterways.”