Land & environment

A draft Management Plan for the Commercial Lakes and Coorong Fishery has been released for public consultation. Minister Basham said the changes further refine the harvest strategies of pipi and finfish to ensure sustainability into the future. A key change in the Management Plan includes refining the method for determining the total allowable commercial effort (net units) for finfish each year. In addition to the existing environmental measures, it is proposed the method includes consideration of the historical catch per unit effort for each finfish species.

Tropical cyclone Kimi developed east of Cairns and tracked towards the coast, bringing moderate to heavy falls to the north tropical Queensland coast. A cold front brought moderate falls to southern Victoria and western Tasmania. The highest weekly total was 369 mm at Babinda in north-east Queensland.

Local water infrastructure in Stanthorpe will get a $940,000 boost, as part of $8.9 million in bushfire recovery projects announced today by the Australian and Queensland governments. Maranoa MP David Littleproud said this project is one of nine Local Economic Recovery projects were announced today to support recovery in Queensland communities hit hard by the 2019-20 bushfires, including two exciting projects in Maranoa. “In our area, $940,000 will go to the Southern Downs Regional Council for the Smart Water Meters project,” Mr Littleproud said. “This project will install smart metering technology in Stanthorpe, which will help to adapt the built environment to future climate and natural hazard conditions.

District Council of Coober Peedy, Media Release, 22 January 2021. Water consumption in the town remains excessively high. This may be due to leaks in the network or some customers using excessive water, such as filling up swimming pools. At the current rate of consumption, the town has two days of water in storage. During the day, the water employees will shut down various parts of the network in an attempt to isolate the cause. This means that some customers will have no water for about half an hour. If water leaks are found, the water outage could be longer. All outages will be notified on Council’s website, Facebook page and Mailchimp half an hour in advance.

The Murray River Group of Councils, Media Release, 13 January 2021 The Murray River Group of Councils has welcomed Mildura Mayor, Cr Jason Modica as...

February to April rainfall is likely to be close to or above average for much of Australia, particularly for Queensland and northwest Western Australia.