[Central Telegraph 2 Dec 2010] -- The Baralaba group won the State Peabody Environment and Landcare Award at the Regional Achievement and Community Awards.Ray Becker, Baralaba Landcare's voluntary facilitator, said the project for which they won the award centred around dealing with the aquatic weed Hymenachne, an aquatic creeping grass imported from South America and promoted in the 1980s by the Department of Primary Industries as a ponded pasture species.
WEED WHACKERS WIN: Baralaba Landcare president John Lawson accepts the group’s state award from Toni Ward, of Peabody Energy.
It turned out to be a very invasive species and spread far and wide into streams and wetlands.
Mr Becker said the aim of the project had been to clear an extremely severe infestation of Hymenachne from a section of the Dawson River anabranch just west of Baralaba, where it had formed a solid mat across the surface and degraded water quality to the extent that there was little, if any, aquatic life. Water samples showed it had stripped the water of oxygen.
The water was of such poor quality that irrigated crops were not responding and cattle watered from this source were losing weight.
Baralaba Landcare sought help and funding from SunWater, local councils and the Capricorn Pest Manage- ment Group.
As a result, SunWater had donated chemicals worth $10,000 and the Capricorn Pest Management Group had been successful in gaining substantial funding. Baralaba Landcare then formed a partnership with these groups.
Trudy Baker, of the Capricorn Pest Management Group, organised a “resource sharing day” where Ba- nana, Central Highlands and Rockhamp- ton regional councils brought their weed officers and spraying equipment and, together with local landholders, made a major assault on the pest.
This was the beginning of a long but very successful spraying and burning program.
Ms Baker said it had been necessary to call in the services of a helicopter at the end of the project to take out the middle section, where the stream was too wide to reach from the banks.
President of Baralaba Landcare John Lawson praised the great teamwork.
“It is great to go down along the anabranch and see the water free of the rotten pest and see fish swimming in there once again,” he said.
