Central Coast Council in partnership with the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), the NSW Government Department of Planning and Environment (NSW DPE) and the local community, are a finalist in one of Australia’s most comprehensive national science awards.

The Eureka Awards honour excellence across the areas of research and innovation, leadership, science engagement and school science. Council is nominated as one of three finalists in the Applied Environmental Research category, in recognition of water contamination research developments and improving beach water quality.

Together with its partners, Council’s Water and Sewer, Environmental Management and Roads and Drainage teams have been working to improve water quality at Terrigal beach and coastal lagoons.

Commencing in 2019, the collaboration worked to diagnose and rectify poor water quality issues after the NSW DPE Beachwatch Program revealed that the water quality at several NSW beaches was consistently poor with unclear causes.

A comprehensive environmental sampling program was implemented by Council, NSW DPE and UTS, with scientists applying cutting-edge molecular microbiological and DNA sequencing approaches to precisely define the causes and sources of contamination, which subsequently guided Council’s water quality and infrastructure management efforts.

Director of Central Coast Council Water and Sewer, Jamie Loader that once the team identified the sources of beach pollution, Council could focus on sewer remediation.

“The team demonstrated that sewage overflow into a specific stormwater drain had the biggest impact on water quality.

“We inspected 115km of sewer mains and identified one third of these as in need of repair. We’ve since remediated 41km, which is 95 percent of this problem sewerage infrastructure.”

Mr Loader said that since the remediation works, Terrigal Beach has received two ‘Good’ ratings in the Beachwatch Program after a decade of ‘Poor’ results.

He added that despite the significant wet weather and flooding events in recent years, Beachwatch monitoring has shown improvements in water quality during dry weather, being suitable for swimming almost all of the time.

“This is a direct indication of improved water quality. As work continues, the improvements have already been widely appreciated by the local community, with implications for water quality initiatives both nationally and internationally.”

Council Administrator, Rik Hart said leading the partnership and community collaboration in the remediation phase of this project demonstrates Council’s dedication to improving water and sewer essential services, and placing our customers at the centre of everything Council does.

“The national recognition of Council’s work with industry leaders is fantastic, and an appreciated bonus to our partnership work,” said Mr Hart.
The Applied Environmental Research award will be announced on Wednesday 23 August.

To learn more about the project, the community consultation and for an interactive map showing where remediation has occurred, search ‘Terrigal and coastal lagoons audit’ at yourvoiceourcoast.com/tcla

ENDS