FBA invites landholders to attend gully repair field days

Posted on April 1st, 2016

Gully repair will be the focus at a series of demonstration field days hosted by FBA in CQ from 12-14 April to help the region’s graziers and farmers plan and conduct future gully repair works.
Fitzroy Basin Association Inc. (FBA) chief executive officer Paul Birch said when it comes to undertaking earthworks to repair gullies, landholders are often unsure where to start.
“The field days are a great opportunity to come and see what others have done to repair gullies and access expert advice, strategies and solutions from a soil conservation expert,” Mr Birch said.
FBA has worked with six graziers with actively eroding gullies, located in high sediment areas across the Fitzroy Basin to complete site specific gully erosion repair projects through funding from the Australian Government’s Reef Programme.
“Actively eroding gullies are considered one of the greatest risks to the health of the Great Barrier Reef, contributing significant amounts of sediment to local waterways, and the Reef,” Mr Birch said.
“FBA is hosting demonstration days at three sites, ensuring representation of various repair techniques on different soil and land types, to provide attendees a greater understanding of gullies in our region,” he said.
Chris and Michelle Walton are hosting one of the three demonstration field days at their grazing property Moorang, near Taroom. They conducted repair work at two areas on their property as part of the project.
Mr Walton said they have lost tonnes of top soil over the years from the gullies and repairing them was a critical step in ensuring their grazing enterprise’s profitability, now and into the future.
“It’s something that we accept in this country as being fairly normal, having gullies like this, but to some degree in the back of your mind you do know it’s like a cancer on your country,” he said.
“Continuing to lose that amount of soil would not only damage valuable grazing land, it also threatened to impact infrastructure such as fences and access tracks. In addition, it would have impacts downstream and the sediment would end up on the Reef.”
Gully repair days will be held on properties near Ogmore, Clermont and Taroom in mid-April. For more information, or to RSVP contact Johnelle Stevens on (07) 4999 2832 or email johnelle.stevens@fba.org.au