Minutes of previous meeting:

The minutes were confirmed on the motion of M. McCormick and C. Westcott.

Business arising out of the minutes:

None

Correspondence out:

Letter to Ryan Munro, City of Albany Bushcare Coordinator, requesting 60 kg of Dalapon for roadside watsonia control in the catchment, an increase of 20 kg from last year. The City of Albany provides public liability insurance and the chemical.

Letter to City of Albany CEO Andrew Hammond regarding excessive clearing of native roadside vegetation along Marbelup Road during roadworks.

Correspondence in:

Letter from Graeme Still, Operations Manager at City of Albany, advising that the roadside vegetation removed was reasonable.

Business arising from correspondence:

Keith Smith to contact Melanie Price, City of Albany, and request her attendance at the next TCG meeting, to discuss the Council's roadside clearing policy. Keith offered to donate a seed mix from Nindethana seeds, to revegetate the roadside verge. It was discussed that the City of Albany should put a policy in place to collect seed before clearing native vegetation. City of Albany engineering staff and the Director of Works should also be invited to attend the meeting. Timing for direct seeding to revegetate road verges is the break of season. Green Skills has successfully revegetated the Redmond rubbish tip site. M. Walker who lives on Marbelup Road said that now that the road has been widened, the remaining verge between the road and boundary fence is only 18 inches wide and not of sufficient width to revegetate. Larger areas with stands of paperbark have been left on bends.

Moved P. Marshall, seconded M. Walker that the correspondence is accepted. Carried.

Report on "Watershed Torbay" special project

WATERSHED TORBAY is a special project of the Torbay Catchment Group. The project is a whole of catchment river restoration project for Torbay Catchment. A Community Steering Group was formed in 2001 as a sub-group of the Torbay Catchment Group, including representatives from the Catchment Group who meet regularly (monthly) to progress the project with WRC staff and other project partners (Department of Agriculture, Water Corporation, Green Skills and Land & Water Australia.

Watershed Torbay project communication: A report on Watershed Torbay progress will be a standing item on the TCG agenda. Community Steering Group members will formally report on the project progress at each TCG meeting. Andrew Marshall, Des Wolfe, Diane Evers, Terri Harwood, Chris Westcott, Phil Mellon, Bill North and Mark Taylor are Torbay Catchment Group members on the project Steering Committee.

The Watershed Torbay project has a finite life span of four years. The Community Steering Committee has a particular job to do, i.e. to promote and progress the Watershed Torbay project, within the Torbay Catchment Community.

Louise Duxbury of Green Skills, is working on the communication and community consultation aspects of the Watershed Torbay project two days per week. Louise is putting together a newsletter for the whole catchment, which is something the Torbay Catchment Group has wanted to do for some time. Louise provided a mock-up of the suggested layout for comment by Catchment Group Members. Craig Chappelle is doing the artwork for the newsletter. Louise is looking for your articles for the newsletter - if you have something you would like to submit, please post your article to Louise Duxbury at Green Skills, PO Box 577 Denmark WA 6333 or email to louiseduxbury@greenskills.green.net.au

As Watershed Torbay is a specific project of the Torbay Catchment Group, the decision has been made by the project's Community Steering Group to formally adopt the Torbay Catchment Group's vision for the catchment, as the project vision, ie: Torbay catchment is environmentally clean with a balanced ecology supporting a prosperous community in which people respect each others use of the catchment waterways

Diane Evers reported on the "SWOT" analysis that the Steering Group took part in, to identify the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats facing the success of the Watershed Torbay project. This gave the Steering Committee a better idea of what is going for the catchment, people and project, and what is hindering things. One area identified is that better representation from the upper catchment community is needed on the Watershed Torbay project steering group, and the Torbay Catchment Group. We need to encourage people from the upper catchment to get involved.

Other activities planned included a photograph competition - of good and bad / likes and dislikes about the catchment.

Woodbury Boston Environmental School is keen to be involved in catchment activities and in the Watershed Torbay special project. Activities they could potentially take part in may include: oral histories, water quality monitoring, photographic competition and kids comments in the Watershed Torbay community newsletter. The School's web page is now linked to the Watershed Torbay web page.

Watershed Torbay web page - WORTH HAVING A LOOK! Please let us know what you would like to see on your webpage at www.torbay.scric.org/

An aerial map of Torbay Catchment is being produced for each community hall in the catchment (Elleker, Redmond and Torbay) and Woodbury Boston School. The colour map is 1.5 square metres. A smaller catchment map which includes contact details for the community steering group members of the project will be mailed to all householders in the catchment, together with the quarterly Watershed Torbay newsletter

Terri Harwood reported on the meeting between the project's technical group and the community steering group, where steering group members were briefed on the research which has been proposed for the project to fill current knowledge gaps about the catchment. Community members had the opportunity to question the researchers, with the outcome that community members now feel confident that the data collected will be useful to the project. The meeting was useful for community members to see what the technical group is doing.

Community information sessions will be held in the next few months at the Redmond, Torbay and Elleker halls, to bring the Watershed Torbay project to the community. These will be advertised well in advance. The purpose of these sessions will be to share the information already collected about the catchment, eg. Dave Weaver's catchment nutrient work (Dept. of Agriculture); and to gather more information about the catchment from people living here. The emphasis will be on community members asking the questions, letting us know what areas need research, and in what areas to spend the research money available. Torbay Catchment Group members advised that Saturday afternoon sessions would get the greatest attendance.

The type of information gathered at the information sessions will include:
- Recording the things that people value in the catchment
- What things would people like to see improved
- What would you like to see the catchment look like
- Then once the whole community's vision is established, we can start to work towards this.

Watershed Torbay launch: The project launch date is Saturday 13th April, 2.30 pm at Woodbury Boston Environmental School. Dr Judy Edwards, Minister for the Environment, will be officially launching the project; with City of Albany Mayor Allison Goode launching the Watershed Torbay website and photographic competition. Torbay catchment produce and environmental weeds will be on display. Children's activities will be provided.

The next Watershed Torbay Community Steering Group meeting is Tuesday 14th May, 7.30 pm at Elleker Hall.

Coast and Clean Seas Torbay wetland project - Marshall's wetland

Maurice McCormick and Andrew Marshall have completed a count of surviving fringing wetland species planted around the constructed wetland in July 2001. A total of 997 plants of the 2500 planted, survived. Some species survived in the sand banks over the dry summer, where others didn't. Replacement plants will be selected and ordered for planting in July 2002, based on the location of existing surviving plants.

Other business

Members attending the meeting asked if the proposed Boral quarry in Torbay Catchment was an issue for the Torbay Catchment Group, and could the TCG influence this in any way. Members debated the TCG's stance on this issue and determined that if proposed activities in the catchment affect the TCG's vision for the catchment, then the TCG should have a say.

Members discussed the issues and impacts associated with the proposed quarry including noise, trucks, dust, potential effect of pollutants from a bitumen plant in the catchment, groundwater requirements and supply for dust suppression.

Resulting from this discussion, TCG will write to the City of Albany, and requesting notification from the City of Albany if and when a quarry development proposal is received and make the point that the TCG does not want a quarry in Torbay Catchment. A copy of this correspondence is to be forwarded to Boral.

The next meeting will be held on 8 May, 2002.