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Learn How to Manage Your Local Creek

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Healthy Environments

Landholders and interested community members will have the chance to learn how to better look after their local creeks and waterways through a series of workshops.

The first of the free hands-on workshops is being held in Grass Valley in June, and will teach people about restoring rivers so they can undertake similar work on their own properties.

The sessions are being funded by the Department of Water, Avon Catchment Council, Ribbons of Blue/Waterwatch WA, and the Australian Government’s Caring for Country initiative.

The Department of Water’s Terry Brooks said each workshop will have a session on bed and bank restoration including the building of at least one riffle.

“A riffle is an area of fast running water (better known as a rapid) where water flows quickly over a high point in the bed, resulting in oxygenation of water,” Terry Brooks said.

“Riffles create a habitat for aquatic fauna, act as a sediment trap, stabilise the stream bed and slow the energy levels of the watercourse.

“In the workshop, participants can learn how to construct these out of rock that is often lying around on farming properties.”

Each workshop will also have a session on water quality, involving sampling small macro-invertebrate fauna and testing for salinity and pH levels.

“Participants will have the opportunity to undertake a foreshore assessment that gives a score for the quality of the foreshore, its vegetation and environmental health,” Terry Brooks said.

“Participants in the Grass Valley workshop will also have hands on instruction in using a surveyor’s level for a reach of a watercourse.

A future workshop, to be held west of Brookton, will feature riparian vegetation planting.

The workshop sessions will run between 9am and 4pm on Saturday 20th June, with morning tea, afternoon tea and lunch provided.

Places are limited and participants must be over 15 years of age.

Please call 9690 2620 to reserve a place at the workshop.

Media Contact: Terry Brooks, Natural Resource Management Officer, Department of Water - Phone: (08) 9690 2623