Mary River (Queensland)

Headwaters of the Mary River in Conondale

The Mary River is a river in the southeast of the Australian state of Queensland.

  • 2.1 Floods 2011

Geography

The river rises in the settlement Booroobin in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. From there it flows north through the towns of Kenilworth, Gympie, Tiaro and Maryborough. To the northeast of this city it flows at River Heads in the Great Sandy Strait, a sea channel between the Australian east coast and Fraser Iceland.

The catchment area of ​​the Mary River covers an area of ​​9595 km ² and is bounded by the Conondale Range, the Jimma Range and the Burnett Range.

Tributaries with muzzle heights

  • Little Yabba Creek - 109 m
  • Obi Obi Creek - 88 m
  • Yabba Creek - 66 m
  • Kandanga Creek - 65 m
  • Amamoor Creek - 58 m
  • Six Mile Creek - 51 m
  • Eel Creek - 49 m
  • Glastonbury Creek - 42 m
  • Wide Bay Creek - 40 m
  • Curra Creek - 36 m
  • Slaty Creek - 28 m
  • Munna Creek - 22 m
  • Ooramera Creek - 19 m
  • Gutchy Creek - 17 m
  • Oaky Creek - 17 m
  • Chinaman Creek - 12 m
  • Myrtle Creek - 11 m
  • Grahams Creek - 10 m
  • Tinana Creek - 4 m
  • Salt Water Creek - 1 m
  • Susan River - 0 m

Traveston Crossing Dam

Under the impression of the longest drought in the last 100 years, the Queensland Government announced on 27 April 2006 that she wanted to leave a part of the Mary River at Traveston Crossing, south of Gympie, damming. In November 2009, this project but was dropped again because the Australian Government refused.

The plan was to 2011 the construction of a dam " almost as large as the Lake Wivenhoe " before. The reservoir should fertile farmland, endangered ecosystems of regional significance and small settlements in an area that would have been 1.3 times as large as the Sydney Harbour flood. There was considerable opposition to the affected residents and the Parliaments of the Mary Valley Shire and the Sunshine Coast Shire disagreed with the plans for many reasons, such as laying the to overflowing settlements, adverse effects on the downstream communities and anticipated environmental damage by eliminating one of the few remaining areas of distribution of the endangered Australian lung fish. More than 20,000 residents turned in an official petition to the Parliament of Queensland, with the aim to prevent the dam. There were other objections that the geomechanics of the proposed site is unsuitable for a dam and with significant leakage could be expected (because of the predominantly sandy soil ) and evaporation problems.

Also from the international side, there were strong objections to the construction of the dam, as the habitat of different endangered animals would have been destroyed. The Mary River flows into the Great Sandy Strait, where wetlands are recognized by international stature and of the Ramsar Convention. In addition, there is the Fraser Iceland World Heritage Area, an area that attracts thousands of visitors every year.

History

The river was called by the Aborigines of the local Kabi Kabi tribe Moocooboola. The first Europeans described him as Wide Bay River. 1847, even before Queensland became a separate colony, named him the then Governor of New South Wales, Charles Augustus FitzRoy, by his wife Lady Mary Lennox in Mary River has to offer.

In 1867, James Nash discovered in the Mary River near Gympie gold, which triggered the first major gold rush Queensland.

Floods in 2011

During the floods in Queensland 2010/2011 and the Mary River overflowed its banks. In some places the water level rose 20 meters. In Maryborough, the water level rose to 8.28 meters, while it was 19.3 meters in Gympie and more than 50 homes and businesses were flooded. The turbulent flow disturbed the natural breeding cycle of some species in the river.

Fauna

The endangered Mary River Turtle ( Elusor macrurus ) lives in the river. Other aquatic species are the Australian lungfish ( Neoceratodus forsteri ) and the endangered Mary River cod ( Maccullochella mariensis ). Other important species that are considered endangered or sensitive, life on the river, such as the endangered Giant Barred Frog ( Frog, Mixohyes iterates ), the cascade tree frog and Coxen 's Fig Parrot ( Parakeet, Cyclopsytta diophthalma coxeni ) and the sensitive Toothed frog ( Adelotus brevis ), the Honey Blue -eyed Fish, the Richmond Birdwin butterfly ( butterfly), and the Illidge 's Ant -blue butterfly ( butterfly).

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