Jones Creek/Cairnlea Wetlands for Healthy Waterways Strategy Refresh

FoI perspective (5.3 Mb PDF)

This is the first of at least three submissions I am making to Melbourne Water’s draft Healthy Waterways Strategy (HWS) following extensive participation in the HWS refresh process since learning at the second HWS Co-governance Waterways Lab in November 2016 that the Maribyrnong catchment was slated to be the pilot for a process to be rolled out across the five subcatchments of the Port Phillip and Westernport catchment for which Melbourne Water is responsible.

While the draft HWS insists that it has chosen a representative sample of wetlands for detailed discussion, it is difficult to see how some of those on the former Albion Explosives Factory site should not rank with the 35 selected in the Werribee Catchment Works Program, save that there is no evidence of any involvement of Friends of Kororoit Creek in the Catchment Collaboration. On picking this up, I put on my Friends of Iramoo hat without time to ask for official blessing from our local grasslands group.