Corangamite Catchment Management Authority chief executive John Riddiford has spoken to The Standard to describe action the organisation is taking in response to the poor state of the Curdies River.
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The river has suffered a series of blue green algal blooms over the past few years, but a recent three-month event has been by far the worst, killing tens of thousands of fish and triggering a major outcry.
On June 3 a meeting was held with executives from CCMA, West Vic Dairy and Dairy Australia to discuss the crisis.
"This is important since a significant number of farmers in the catchment are dairy farmers," Mr Riddiford said.
He said West Vic Dairy had committed to keep working towards the environmental goals of the Dairy Industry Sustainability Framework.
The framework's goals include excluding stock from all waterways by 2030, however the latest Dairy Sustainability Scorecard from 2020 showed farmers had slipped back on that metric since 2015.
Mr Riddiford said WVD would keep highlighting the issue to farmers and introduce "better tools and support for farmers to assess their potential impact and make improvements".
"The Corangamite CMA also supports dairy farmers through our Sustainable Dairy Management Project. This project is a partnership between the CCMA, Agriculture Victoria, West Vic Dairy, and Landcare to engage dairy communities to support whole of farm nutrient management in the Gellibrand and Curdies River catchment," he said.
Mr Riddiford said the project had improved management of approximately 8,000 hectares across the region.
"It is important to note that there are other agricultural industries and land uses within the catchment, and they too need to be involved," he said.
The CCMA has also created a Curdies River Consultative Committee, bringing all the major state and local authorities, as well as industry and other stakeholders, together. Mr Riddiford said the CCMA was looking for community representatives too.
"The consultive committee has been established to provide a transparent and effective platform for knowledge sharing, consultation and collaboration in relation to improving the health of the Curdies River and its tributaries," he said.
"The CCMA highly values community representation on the consultative committee as everyone who lives, works and recreates in the Curdies River catchment has a role to play in improving the health of the Curdies River."
Interested locals can apply through the CCMA website. Applications close on July 5.
Mr Riddiford said the CCMA had also engaged Deakin University to "summarise and synthesise" studies looking at nutrient sources in the Curdies catchment.
He said the algal blooms pointed to high nutrient levels and the most recent in-depth study of the river was from 2005, which meant it was well out of date.
The 2005 study expressed concerns about nutrient loads in the river and many locals said its recommendations weren't implemented.
Mr Riddiford said the implementation of the 2005 recommendations would be investigated in the Deakin study, "with the results presented at a community forum later in the year".
He also listed a number of other pre-existing CCMA projects that affect the Curdies catchment, including the Waterways Protection Program (2021-2024), the Curdies Estuary Fish Habitat Restoration Project, which is spending nearly $300,000 on fish habitats in the estuary, and the Curdies River EstuaryWatch and Waterwatch citizen science groups.
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