Merri Creek Management Committee

2014-15 was a busy year of many activities on Merri Creek:

• Plantings, surveys, weed control and ecological burns at over 60 sites.
• 17,815 plants put in the ground.
• 39 hands-on community events and interpretative tours.
• Educational and engagement sessions that reached over 9,000 people.
• Working alongside Wurundjeri Elders and the Wurundjeri Narrap team on land management.

Read about these achievements and more in our latest Annual Report. Highlights are in the President’s Report.  Our on-ground achievements are in the Parkland Management section, and fauna information is in a separate Fauna Report. The environmental awareness spread by our Catchment Program, our Planning & Coordination activities, and of course our yearly finances are also in the Annual Report. More financial details are in the Auditor’s Report.

In its headwaters in the upper Merri catchment, Edgars Creek flows over a rocky basalt plain and through new residential areas in North Epping (photo at left).

In its middle reaches this important tributary of the Merri Creek flows through an industrial landscape in Thomastown (photo at right).

In 2010 Whittlesea City Council had the Centre for Aquatic Pollution Identification and Management (at Melbourne Uni) survey water quality in drains that lead to Edgars Creek in the industrial precinct.  There was a clear association between industrial estates and high pollutant loads including toxicants such as arsenic, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, silver and zinc.

Two actions resulted.  EPA Victoria undertook further investigations and Whittlesea City Council and Merri Creek Management Committee partnered to prioritise stormwater education in industrial areas through a new initiative, Waterway Friendly Workplaces. MCMC trained teams visited 22 small workplaces in the summer 2013 – 14 to discuss potential pollution pathways with small business owners and their employees. Actions to reduce pollution were high on the list.

Some of these workplaces have adopted innovative practices to prevent pollutants from leaving their workplaces through stormwater drains (like the machine to extract solvent from paint - at right).  Local newspapers also publicised the project.

 The fabulous Merri Magical Morning opened the 2015 Sumner Loving program on 22 February, offering a new sense of place to Merri Park Northcote. The morning performance and stories from Wurundjeri dancers Djirri Djirri had the audience spellbound, and kids flocked to see the Spotted Marsh Frog, the Blue tongue lizard and the butterflies. Adults enjoyed weaving using local plants and people queued to have indigenous flora and fauna stories painted on their arms.  This event was part of the three year Friends of Merri Creek Sumner Loving project, funded by the State Government’s Communities for Nature grants program.  MCMC is helping the Friends of Merri Creek deliver the project. 

Saturday 1st June 2013 was the wettest June day in Melbourne on record. The Merri Creek catchment received rainfall above 57 mm from 9am Friday 31st May to 11am on Saturday 1st June.

The rain led to the media issuing a “major flood warning” at Bell St and St Georges Rd in Coburg. This means that the water was 5m above its normal level.

The flood left huge amounts of mud, litter and debris on the Merri shared path. MCMC and Moreland City Council still went ahead with a planting in Coburg on the next day to celebrate World Environment Day, despite having most of the mulch swept away and mud filling up the holes that had been dug previously.