Residents have until February 20 to take part in a survey to inform the Hawkesbury-Nepean River Coastal Management Program (CMP) currently being developed by six councils that border the tidal section of the Hawkesbury estuary.
A project coordinator has been engaged for the project by Hornsby Council to work on behalf of the partner councils – Hornsby, Central Coast, Hawkesbury, The Hills Shire, Ku-ring-gai and Northern Beaches.
The CMP process will identify areas impacted by various coastal and estuarine hazards and the relative risk of these hazards.
The information will then be used to inform the development of management actions to address the hazards.
Actions could include the definition and mapping of Coastal Vulnerability Areas or physical interventions such as the building of seawalls, rock or timber revetments, and bank and dune revegetation.
The CMP will primarily focus on the impacts within the tidal section stretching over 145km of the river from Broken Bay up to Yarramundi near Richmond as well as the waterways of Pittwater and Brisbane Water which converge with the Lower Hawkesbury River at Broken Bay.
Managing the massive body of water requires a huge amount of collaboration between the six councils and more than 20 different State Government departments.
Up until now, each of the councils had its own plan and was responsible for delivering the actions in these plans.
Of these actions, 88 per cent have been completed with the remaining 12 per cent expected to be carried over into the new Coastal Management Program.
“Having the six councils working together on this project means we can use an integrated approach to manage the Hawkesbury estuary/river on issues that cross jurisdictional boundaries,” the Hornsby Council website says.
“The CMP will set out the long-term strategy for the coordinated management of the coastal zone along the Hawkesbury including its creeks, lagoons, littoral rainforests, wetlands, beaches and associated catchments.”
The CMP will provide an opportunity for councils, public authorities and local communities to identify and balance competing interests and priorities in the coastal zone; a means to implement efficiently NSW government guidelines for coastal management; and recommendations for the future management of the Hawkesbury-Nepean River system.
The CMP will guide how issues will be dealt with, who is responsible, where funding will come from and when actions will be undertaken.
Go here to have your say: https://yoursay.hornsby.nsw.gov.au/hawkesbury-nepean-CMP/hawkesbury-nepean-river-cmp-survey.
Terry Collins