Right now, the NSW government is asking for your feedback on how water is managed in the Wambuul-Macquarie and Castlereagh catchments.

Remember how severe the 2017-2020 drought was? It shook our region.

Write a short submission

The best available science tells us the chance of droughts that severe happening again have jumped from one in a thousand years, to as high as one in thirty years.

The river was cut off downstream of Warren town. Insurance populations of native fish, mussels and turtles had to be rescued from drying green pools. The Ramsar listed Macquarie Marshes caught on fire.

Plans were put in place to house rescued platypus, should the dam and downstream river run completely dry.

As Burrendong dam approached 0%, towns like Nyngan and Dubbo came within months of potentially running out of water.

The scramble to find more groundwater that wasn’t contaminated with dangerous PFAFs highlighted how susceptible to water mis-management our communities are.  

Write a short submission

Right now, there are discussions being had about the future of Dubbo’s riverside land. While the vast majority of people that we’ve spoken to want the land to remain open public parkland, there is a private rugby club who have declared their intentions to construct a sprawling precinct over the public space.

This is our vision for this precious piece of remaining river-side country..

There should be no new sporting fields to be included in the river corridor. This area needs to be kept for public parkland, and for environmental restoration. River flood plains are sensitive environments and introducing more sports fields and associated infrastructure will have further impacts on the corridor and on the river. 

The north and south precincts need to have as little infrastructure as possible but still allow public access and enjoyment. A sculpture park, children’s playground, small number of toilets, a small amphitheater would be examples of acceptable ‘infrastructure’. Pathways should be natural, i.e. dirt, woodchips or crushed granite. Universal access could be provided but only extend into part of the site but it would not be appropriate to have hard surfaces criss-crossing the whole of the precincts. In this regard vehicle access must be kept to a minimal and therefore no car parking areas be provided. Consideration could be made for dirt or crushed granite access roads (for staff) with a small number of inline parking adjoining the access track.

A mixture of forest, open woodland and some wild meadows could be envisaged. An arboretum style landscape with endemic species and a small amount of information plaques be provided.

Small wetland area with adjoining bird hide.

Sporting groups can be accommodated at Council’s many open spaces dotted throughout the established parts of the city or in the new subdivisions that are soon to be developed. There is a development application currently in at Council for the $22 million Dubbo Sports Hub which will have 4 football fields. That would be more than sufficient area for the football teams. Further areas could be adjoining Bunglegumbie Road or Sheraton Road. A developer in town proposed a football complex on Sheraton Road 10 years ago, with no further pursuit of that idea heard since, let’s reinvigorate it.

Introducing football fields in the river corridor will upset a large proportion of Dubbo’s population. Not introducing football fields in the river corridor but locating them elsewhere will not be to the football clubs’ detriment. It would be actually be a positive outcome for them to be located next to already established schools (i.e. the Dubbo Sports Hub adjoins Dubbo College and the CSU campus) or if located on Sheraton Road would be near the schools in that part of town. This would mean schools would have easy access to the fields or children could go straight from school to football training saving car pick-up and drop-off. 

Regand Park has had a brilliant master plan previously prepared by Moir Landscape Architects in 2013. With a few modifications (i.e. no longer needing a velodrome and having less infrastructure than shown on the earlier plan) the parkland would be a credit to Dubbo and be a drawcard for visitors and residents alike. 

New sporting fields need to be preceded by up-to-date strategic documents, master plans, needs assessments, etc. Why would ratepayers want to pay for facilities that may or may not be required? The cart should not go before the horse. If fields are required, the need for such has to be assessed properly and a plan provided. Consideration then needs to be made of Council’s current public open space areas and decisions made on what is to be provided.

Areas such as the north and south precinct for public parkland and environmental restoration are vital for people’s well being. The areas need to be sufficiently large enough to feel ‘immersed’ in nature. Taking chunks out of these areas will diminish their appeal and usefulness for biodiversity. Football fields and environmental restoration living side by side in the river corridor will be detrimental to the environment with disturbance to both flora and fauna.

Let’s create something wonderful, fun, playful, beautiful, silly, magnificent, creative, crazy, calming, wild, naughty, powerful, silent, honoring, reverential, uplifting and lets do it together!!

Image: Save Dubbo’s Greenspace!

They are amazing biofilters, playing a crucial role in keeping rivers healthy. An abundant food source for First Nations Peoples, Freshwater Mussels are a critically important part of the web of life.

Once, they were second only to fish as the dominate life by weight in inland rivers.

The severe drought of 2017-2020, exacerbated the problems caused by decades of over extraction and mis-mangement of water in the Murray Darling Basin and the unthinkable happened – many rivers dried up completely. The Darling-Baaka was a series of small, green disconnected pools from Bourke to the Murray. The Macquarie-Wambuul was cut of at Warren, completely drying out the Macquarie Marshes and the Lower Macquaire.

Rightfully, the fish kills that resulted shocked and horrified the community. But the loss of an estimated 2.9 million Freshwater Mussels is a lesser known ecological catastrophe.

This post includes an article that appeared in The Conversation, and lower down a published study of the habitat and flow requirements of the Freshwater Mussels.

The internationally significant Macquarie Marshes is the only place in the northern Basin where remains of all three species of Freshwater Mussels that live in the basin were found. It is home to the biggest and oldest Freshwater Mussel remains that were found in the study, with one specimen measured at 137.2mm.

The presence of large, old Freshwater Mussels in places like the mid Darling-Baaka Rivers and the Macquarie Marshes proves that the natural wetting and drying patterns of these systems never included completely drying out, like they did in 2017-2020.

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The Conversation – Academic rigour, journalistic flair

Professor Alan Lymbery – Jan 12th 2022

Freshwater mussels are dying suddenly and in the thousands, with each mass death event bringing these endangered molluscs closer to extinction. Tragically, these events rarely get noticed.

Read the full article here

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Habitat and flow requirements of freshwater mussels in the northern Murray-Darling Basin.

Report to the Commonwealth Environmental Water Office
November 2020

Fran Sheldon and Nicole McCasker
Co-authors: Michelle Hobbs, Paul Humphries, Hugh Jones, Michael Klunzinger and Mark Kennard

Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University

Institute of Land, Water and Society, Charles Sturt University

The authors respectfully acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands and waters of the Murray-Darling Basin, particularly those whose lands we walked on in this study, across the Darling, Barwon, Macquarie, Namoi, Gwydir and MacIntyre rivers. We acknowledge that Aboriginal peoples have cared for the rivers for millennia, and pay our respects to the Elders, past and present.

Executive Summary
Freshwater mussels are considered ecosystem engineers of rivers; they modify substrates through burrowing, mediate water quality through filtration, provide food and habitat for other organisms and play a significant role in the biogeochemical cycling of nutrients and are also seriously threatened globally. The rivers of the northern Murray-Darling Basin (MDB) are home to three species of freshwater mussel – the large ‘river mussels’ Alathyria jacksoni and Alathyria condola and the smaller ‘floodplain/billabong mussel’ Velesunio ambiguus. As sedentary, long-lived organisms, obtaining an understanding of the habitat requirements of resident freshwater mussels will provide insights into the natural hydrology of Australia’s inland rivers, and the potential role healthy populations of freshwater mussels could play in influencing water quality through biofiltration. This project was conceived in response to the extensive drought in the northern Murray-Darling Basin between 2017 and early 2020 and the reports of extensive mussel mortality. The specific aims were to review existing knowledge and identify knowledge gaps in relation to environmental water requirements, life history, physiological tolerances and habitat requirements and cultural significance of freshwater mussels in the Murray-Darling Basin, improve baseline understanding of distribution and structure of freshwater mussels in the Northern Basin and make recommendations for land and water management to protect freshwater mussel populations. This was achieved through a predictive analysis of mussel distribution, and analysis of the hydrological conditions during the drying event and a field survey to establish the extent of mussel mortality at sites across the northern Murray-Darling Basin……….

……… The combination of rapid and quantitative surveys used in this study suggest that the loss of mussel populations across the northern Murray-Darling Basin resulting from the drying conditions of 2017- 2019 is significant and widespread. This is a cause for concern given the longevity of mussel individuals and the poor evidence of widespread recent recruitment. Based on our analyses we make the following five (5) broad recommendations:

• Recommendation 1: that further research needs to be undertaken to understand the biology of freshwater mussels in the northern Murray-Darling Basin, including their reproduction, recruitment, growth patterns and diets, as well as their role in the ecosystem of the northern Murray-Darling Basin Rivers – not least because, besides fish, they were historically the dominant animal by weight in these rivers.
• Recommendation 2: that a focus be made on monitoring freshwater mussel recovery in both the short- and long-term. This should include an understanding of which fish species act as hosts and what conditions are required for successful recruitment and establishment of juveniles.
• Recommendation 3: that the importance of low flows and refugial habitats, reaches and waterholes, be formally recognised for freshwater mussels in the northern Murray-Darling Basin and the flow requirements of freshwater mussels be incorporated into flow management plans.
• Recommendation 4: that the role of refugial reaches and waterholes in the landscape persistence of mussels and fish be recognised and the flow required to maintain the integrity of these physical places in the channel network be understood and incorporated into flow management plans. This would require a basin- wide perspective of the Water Sharing Plans and Water Resource Plans to ensure the critical area of the Barwon-Darling River has adequate flows for long-term population survival.
• Recommendation 5: that a specific Freshwater Mussel Recovery Plan be developed in consultation with the communities of the northern Murray-Darling Basin and this plan articulate with Fish Recovery Plans.