In 2018 the Barwon Heads community expressed an interest in establishing a public health driven, water quality monitoring program for the Barwon River Estuary to understand the health of the estuary.
The Barwon Estuary Monitoring Pilot Project (BEMPP) was developed to trial the monitoring of public health and recreational water quality indicators and educate the community about public health impacts. The pilot was delivered by the Corangamite CMA with support from EPA (Victoria).
Sixteen volunteer citizen scientists were recruited and trained to collect water quality information from 8 sites in the proximity of stormwater outfalls and areas of high recreational use. Over a 5-month period between December and May, they tested water quality indicators including, ammonia, pH and turbidity and general observations of each site. The community volunteers also collected samples for microbial (enterococci) testing at a laboratory.
Immediate trends in water quality are not evident and microbial data (enterococci) was variable throughout the monitoring period. There was no ammonia recorded at any of the sites and pH and turbidity were within the expected range for a healthy estuary. A longer-term data set, particularly enterococci information, is required to support decision-making and predict water quality for recreational users.
BEMPP has exceeded all expectations and project targets and there has been positive feedback about the project as a community engagement tool. The BEMPP volunteer citizen scientists were highly motivated and regularly engaged their local community to promote the project. Local events such as Festival of the Sea, Barwon Heads Association meetings as well as print and social media channels were all used to highlight the Barwon River Estuary project.
There is strong community enthusiasm to continue to monitor water quality in the Barwon River Estuary and to explore other tools used to predict water quality for recreational users.