Banking on solutions
A MOSSMAN sugar cane farmer is taking steps to better prepare his property for future wet seasons after having experienced creek bank erosion problems due to floods in recent years.
Gerard Puglisi’s creek-side cane land was washed away in the 2018 floods.
Now he is banking on a combination of rocks and trees as part of a project to stabilise the banks of waterways in the Saltwater Creek catchment through revegetation and engineered construction work.
Mr Puglisi said 20m of stream bank on a dog-leg section of the creek had already been repaired, with works now focusing on an S-bend that included an island.
“The areas were gouged out in the flood and they’ve been eroding into the headland,’’ he said.
“There is more gouging every time it floods, so if we can stop the erosion, we can protect our land and there is also less chance of topsoil ending up in the waterways and going out to the reef.”
Terrain NRM’s Ruginia Duffy said “rock toes” – structures that armour the lower section of stream banks – were being built along the water’s edge while the upper section was reshaped to reduce the slope and allow for tree planting.
“With the rate and level of erosion, combining earthworks and revegetation is the way to hold these stream banks together for the long term,” she said.
“The rock structures are designed to protect the bank while the trees establish.”
Ms Duffy said trees had also been planted on another property in the Cassowary Creek catchment where stream banks were reshaped in late April.
The work is part of the Mossman Integrated Catchment Repair Project, delivered by Terrain NRM and funded by the State Government’s Natural Resources Investment Program.