Local Member for Polwarth Richard Riordan to speak at Curdies River meeting in Peterborough

The meeting, which will take place at the Peterborough Community Hall from 7pm, was convened by the Save the Curdies group as it attempts to pressure the state government into intervening in the crisis.

Mr Riordan said he wanted to "give some background to the community on the issue", as well as hearing its concerns.

"I want to get a message from the community to feed back to government," he said.

Mr Riordan said the toxic blue green algae was disastrous, and a solution needed a "whole community approach". "One person can't solve it alone," he said.

The poor health of the Curdies River was clearly documented at least as far back as 2005. Mr Riordan said the lack of action stemmed from a combination of scarce funding and poor governance.

"I've had experience on the catchment management authority and I know they can always do with more funding, but often that funding is mismanaged by government because it 's not flexible enough," he said.

"They've got a one size fits all funding arrangement which doesn't help."

He acknowledged the issue would only be solved if nutrient runoff from surrounding farms was properly managed, but argued authorities had to work with individual farmers to make that happen.

"You'd be better off working with farmers and listening to what they think is the best solution for their farm rather than telling them what to do," he said.

Landcare groups also had a major role to play, he said. "I want to hear from the land care people to find out what they can do and how they can be supported."

The Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning has described the toxic conditions as "natural" and said only rain and cool conditions can fix the issue.

But it will require significant rainfall. Recent cool wet conditions only appear to have made the situation worse according to locals.

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