Hunter River Estuary Wastewater Masterplan
Project Overview
The Hunter River, including its creeks and waterways, is central to our wellbeing. People use the river for boating, fishing and swimming. It provides water for farming and industry. It nourishes our wetlands and provides habitat for native plants and animals.
Helping our river be healthy and beautiful
There are lots of factors that affect the health of the river and estuary. Dirty water flows into the river from roads, gutters and drains. There's water run-off from farms and industry that contains pollutants. Erosion means soil and nutrients enter the river. There are also treatment plants in Farley, Kurri Kurri, Raymond Terrace, Morpeth and Shortland that release treated wastewater that flows into the river.
We need to make sure we are helping maintain river health and we are also able to meet the needs of our growing population. To do this we are developing the Hunter River Estuary Wastewater Masterplan (the plan) to guide decisions about how to manage our wastewater treatment plants into the future.
Thank you to everyone who helped by telling us how and where they use the river, creeks and waterways. We are currently reviewing everything you've told us and incorporating that into our plan. We'll soon have more information to share with you.
Timeline
2019
Research
Hunter River Estuary Wastewater Masterplan has finished this stage. We met with councils, government departments and many other organisations involved with the health of the river and estuary.
2020
How do you use the river? What are the future plans?
We are asking the community to let us know how they use the river. Which locations are most important to them. We are also asking councils, government agencies, businesses and many other organisations to let us know their future plans.
Late 2021-late 2022
What are the options?
It's very likely there will multiple options and solutions to consider. We will model the predicted outcome and result for each solution and develop a list of the best ones.
Late 2022
Where to from here?
We'll let the community know the next steps.
Project news
12 May 21
Community survey now closed
Thank you to everyone who completed our map-based survey to let us know how and where you access the Hunter River and its waterways. We are now incorporating this information and will let you know soon the next steps for this project.
The Hunter Estuary Alliance
Maitland City Council, together with City of Newcastle, Port Stephens Council, Dungog Shire Council, Hunter Local Land Services and Hunter Water have formed The Hunter Estuary Alliance.
The Alliance's goal is to coordinate sustainable management of the Hunter River Estuary for the social, cultural and economic well being of the community. The first step is to develop the Hunter Estuary Coastal Management Program.