ILALC client brief for USYD Jul 2022

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Macquarie University *

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CIVL2205

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Geography

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Oct 30, 2023

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pdf

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Call for Proposals: A regenerative approach to water quality monitoring About the ILALC The Illawarra Local Aboriginal Lands Council (ILALC) is the peak Aboriginal organisation within the Wollongong and greater Illawarra region of New South Wales. It aims to protect the interest and further the aspirations of its members in regards to Aboriginal lands, cultures and heritage. The ILALC has nearly 500 active members and represents the greatest number of traditional custodians within its boundary. When considering Aboriginal Lands, it is important to understand that their management sits within multiple legislative frameworks, one of which is through the NSW Aboriginal Land Rights Act. This Act constitutes the NSW Aboriginal Lands Council to divide the state into regions for Aboriginal controlled land management. The Illawarra Local Aboriginal Lands Council (ILALC) advocates and manages a boundary that roughly spans from the southern end of the Royal National Park at Otford to Mittagong in the west, Gerroa in the south and its eastern boundary being the Pacific Ocean. One of ILALC’s main responsibilities is to reclaim crown lands as assets for its communities and to protect and preserve cultural heritage and sites, while perusing its entrepreneurial aspirations. Project Brief ILALC has recently partnered with the local Coal mining operations of South32 to implement a values-based approach to monitoring and regenerating the health and wellbeing of the local creek system downstream of the Mount Kembla area (see figure 1). This values-based approach emphasises the need for wide participation in the project to build awareness and consensus on how to manage the health and wellbeing of our Country. One of the challenges in managing pollution is the accurate tracing of pollution sources. Knowing exactly where pollutants are coming from and under what conditions they are able to enter waterways is critical for preventing negative impacts on waterways. Current approaches involve manual sampling of specific locations during and after rainfall and ones that are particularly reliant on external consultants engaged by ILALC, or third-party data.

Figure 1 Waterways surrounding Mount Kembla and Mount Keira, west of the Princes Highway 1 We see an opportunity to get more of our community involved in monitoring the health and wellbeing of the creek system by taking ownership of sampling and analysis. With greater participation from local community and the ILALCs own staff, we hope to: • Generate more accurate data on pollution sources; • Involve more people in monitoring and caring for Country, particularly our youth; • Build capacity within our community to care for Country; • Empower the ILALC to monitor water quality and manage independent water quality data; and, • Regenerate the creek system closer to a pre-colonial state. We are seeking advice, concept ideas and implementation plans for water quality monitoring and regenerative solutions. We have identified a number of conditions that pose challenges for our current monitoring processes: • Overland flows drawing pollutants from unidentified sources. • Groundwater contamination, and how to gather data on this. • Stormwater systems and artificially redirected flows. • Temporary stagnant water accumulations. • Capturing data during and after heavy downpours. • Understanding how rain intensity affects waterway contamination. • Engaging children and people with limited mobility in monitoring the health of the system. 1 ILALC (2022). Regenerating Country, Regenerating Economies; a Mt Kembla-Mt Keira Waterway Regeneration Project Plan. Wollongong, NSW.

Our general priorities for solutions that would be regarded as successful include: • Enable data sovereignty and support autonomy • Low cost • Low entry point in relation to skills required to implement the solution • Resilient designs that require minimal maintenance • Solutions that do not negatively impact on local environments We look forward to working with you on this project and seeing the concepts and development proposals put forward by University of Sydney students! Jade Kennedy Chair, Illawarra Local Aboriginal Lands Council

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