By Phil Jarratt
After years of talking about it, the Noosa community is set to make fundamental changes to vessel management on the Noosa River to make it safer and more accessible for all.
Following long hours of private consultation between Maritime Safety Queensland, the council-funded Noosa River Stakeholders Advisory Committee and council staff and councillors over many months, MSQ released its online survey on 9 December, asking the community to have their say on a raft of proposed changes to vessel waterways management. The survey will remain open for feedback until 13 January.
Announcing the community consultation, an MSQ spokesperson said: “The Noosa River is a complex waterway valued economically, environmentally and socially by the people of the Noosa Shire region and its visitors. The congestion and diversity of users on the waterway makes managing the anchoring, mooring and navigation of vessels challenging.
“The proposed changes are a response to concerns raised by the community, in particular threats to safety and environmental threats. Stakeholder and community input is a vital part of this engagement to ensure that changes to vessel waterways management contribute to achieving safe and equitable access to the Noosa River and surrounding waterways for everyone.”
According to sources close to the river management issues, a shift in attitude of commercial stakeholders and a surge of new permanent and semi-permanent Covid-era residents who want to see the river made safer for passive users means that the Noosa community is more likely than at any other time in recent history to back a new and more sensitive approach.
The proposed changes include anchoring zones and new time limits on their use, and a permanent 6 knots speed limit on the main thoroughfare of the river. The main points are:
• A 28-day limit on vessels anchoring in the river.
• 10-day transit vessel anchoring zones.
• No anchoring in key congestion zones.
• 4-hour maximum temporary near-shore access in tourism zones.
• 6 knots speed limit along the busy southern shore of the Noosa River between Doonella Lake and Woods Bay and the dog beach area south of the Frying Pan.
MSQ said the proposed changes were to make access and navigation of the Noosa River safer and more equitable for everyone, noting the increased use of the river by swimmers and a huge variety of passive watercraft like kayaks and stand-up paddle boards.
Welcoming the proposed changes, former Noosa mayor, NRSAC member and one-time riverboat captain Noel Playford told Noosa Today: “I grew up in Noosa Shire when the population was 5000 or 6000 and we didn’t have a lot of visitors. There were a whole lot of things you could get away with then, but now with a much greater population density you just can’t do things that will affect the environment and gradually destroy it, or affect other people.
“What might have been commonplace 50 years ago is not necessarily OK now, when the population is 10 times what it was and visitor numbers probably 100 times.”
Mr Playford said he was particularly gratified that MSQ was finally acting on people using the river as a dumping ground for old boats.
“A lot of the boats anchored in the river were well past their use-by date and people would just drop them in there and forget about them, cheaper than having to dispose of a boat properly. “Others were just using the river as a cheaper alternative to parking in a marina. A lot of these boats were hardly ever used or never used, but MSQ was reluctant to do anything about it because they believed that it simply pushed the problem into some other waterway.
“Our response to that at NRSAC was to tell them that meant they didn’t have the right controls over all of Queensland’s waterways. Now I understand that MSQ is treating Noosa as a model for the whole state.”
Noosa Today understands that an independent 2021 survey revealed that there were as many as 1100 powered vessels on the entire Noosa River and Noosa Waters canal estate, while a more recent survey found 186 vessels moored or anchored downstream of the North Shore ferry, excluding tenders and vessels at marinas or in Noosa Waters.
Almost half of these were considered to be incapable of exiting the waterway via the Noosa Bar. This might represent a significant disposal problem for authorities once their 28-day anchorage expires.
But community sentiment seems to be saying, enough is enough. It’s time to act.
Mr Playford said while he expected there to be some community opposition to the proposed changes, the majority would see the benefits.
“When I was first elected mayor, the councillors agreed to remove the caravan park in the Woods. There were protests, mostly from people who kept their caravans there all year so they could have cheap holidays in the best spot in Noosa, but we kept firm on it because people were being excluded from enjoying the Woods. The river is the same. There’ll be winners and losers but the community as a whole will be the big winner.”
On the question of a reduced speed limit, Mr Playford said while he’d had misgivings in the past, now it was time to change.
“I don’t think any commercial operator could claim that reducing the speed limit is going to harm their business. People just don’t like change, but if it affects your business, maybe it’s the wrong business for you.
“The thing is it’s a tiny, shallow river. People don’t realise how shallow it is until they see it on a clear day at low tide, how little space there is for boats to manoeuvre in the lower estuary.”
Summarising his position on the proposed changes, Mr Playford told Noosa Today: “MSQ has been negligent about Noosa for many years, but they can only do what they can with the government resources they’re given.
“[Noosa MP] Sandy Bolton has been key to this. It’s quite possible that we wouldn’t be where we are with the river without her pushing.
“Because it’s about river use it’s not a council responsibility, but Noosa Council put the resources into keeping the river committee going, so I think the community should be thankful to both council and MSQ.
“Hopefully we’ll now be able to stop talking about a Noosa River plan and start activating it. But we need the community to get behind it, because if it doesn’t happen now, it will be the community’s fault.”
To learn more about Maritime Safety Queensland’s river management plans and express your view, visit getinvolved.qld.gov.au/gi/consultation/view
