Minutes of Steering Group Meeting 11th June 2002 accepted as a true, accurate and reasonable record of the previous meeting

1. RESEARCH PROJECTS
   • Mieke Bourne reported on the progress of her Lake Powell typha study - summary attached.
   • Lorna McGuire reported on the Economic analysis of implementing best management practices for water quality protection in Marbelup sub-catchment - summary attached.
   • Peter Collins (CALM) briefed the meeting on the conservation status of Lake Powell. The Lake has an area of 190 hectares. Over summer months it can be home to 20% of the south coast duck population. Up to 1500 ducks have been estimated on the Lake at any one time. Lake Powell does not have a specific management plan, but is covered in CALM's South Coast Management Plan.

2. COMMUNITY FORUMS

   Louise provided a summary of the group discussions held at the Elleker, Torbay and Redmond community forums in June. This summary provides the Steering Group with information on issues that concern the wider catchment community. The Steering Group will be use this information to set objectives for the Watershed Torbay project. The Steering Group is the forum in which all of the community information is pulled together.

3. COMMUNITY SURVEY
   • 3-4 people on the Steering Committee will get together and use the information from the forums to develop the community survey. Some discussion followed on the format of the survey (not too long) and the need for incentives to encourage return of the survey.
   • The catchment survey will be posted out, followed by phone contact of a random selection.
   • The survey will provide more detailed information about the catchment.
   • It will get input from a broader group than just those who turn up to meetings.
   • The survey questions will be based on questions asked by the community about their catchment at the recent forums.
   • The surveys will be posted out mid-August. Farmers in Marbelup catchment will be requested to answer some additional questions on landuse, to assist with Lorna McGuire's economic analysis of the cost of implementing best management practices for water quality protection.
   • The information provided by the community in the survey will be used to help set objectives for the Watershed Torbay project, and to set catchment health indicators (annual reporting on the change in environmental health of the catchment).
   • Available Steering Group members to meet with Louise, Terry Walshe, Lorna, John Simpson and Julie at WRC office, Monday 15th July 2.00 pm to work on the content of the community survey.
   • A prize of a "weekend for two" will be drawn as incentive to participate in the survey

4. PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBITION - Afternoon tea Sunday 28th July
   • Judges - Andrew Marshall, Barbara Madden and Alison Goode
   • As it is National Tree Day on Sunday 28th, trees will be handed out to visitors attending the afternoon tea, of Beaufortia sparsa or similar local flowering shrub species.
   • The Albany Advertiser has been invited to attend to publicise the event

5. SETTING OBJECTIVES FOR WATERSHED TORBAY

   The next step is for the Steering Group to work at setting objectives for the project. These must be measurable i.e. if one outcome of this river restoration project is for the water quality of waterways to be returned to a quality that is safe for swimming, what targets do we need to set for nutrient levels and what actions need to be taken? Project objectives will be determined from the list of issues collected from the community forums, and from the objectives initially developed by the Torbay Catchment Group. Steering Group members are requested to go through these existing issues lists, and prioritise the objectives that are needed to address the issues. Steering committee members will then meet to work on objectives in the near future.