Phase two of the development of the Healthy Water Management Plan (HWMP) for the Wet Tropics is now underway and community comment is invited.

Healthy Water Management Plans (HWMP) are key planning mechanisms to improve the quality of Queensland waters under the Environmental Protection (Water) Policy 2009. They help address matters such as issues affecting water quality, waterway uses, values, protection and management. Water quality plans exist in the Wet Tropics for Douglas, Tully-Murray and Barron-Trinity Inlet areas with planning progressing in the Herbert, Johnstone, Russell and Mulgrave catchments to develop a single HWMP for the whole Wet Tropics region.

As part of the development of the HWMP, a series of community workshops were held in August 2011. These workshops were to inform community, and to enable input, for the development of the human uses Environmental Values (EVs), that will be protected for each catchment community.

Worksheets showing the draft information have been compiled and we are now seeking further community comment to ensure we have captured the information correctly. This opportunity is part of the second stage of consultation in the HWMP process.

We will then be looking to have further community meetings, in early 2012.

The meetings next year provide the opportunity to consider these local issues, develop locally relevant management actions (e.g. Best Practice Guidelines) and provide input to a strategy to implement these agreed actions that will help to deliver these water quality outcomes.

Worksheets and maps showing the groupings of the waterways can be found at the link below.