As part of a major river rehabilitation project initiated by the Hunter-Central Rivers Catchment Management Authority (CMA), in partnership with the NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI), a number of large logs or engineered log jams were installed along the Hunter River on land owned by Anglo Coal Australia’s Dartbrook Mine.

The CMA Upper Hunter catchment coordinator Joe Thompson said the installation of engineered log jams was part of a series of strategic actions planned to stabilise and rehabilitate the Hunter River.

“The lack of riverbank vegetation and in-stream logs in the Hunter region’s rivers and streams is a critical issue that we are addressing through this initiative,” Mr Thompson said.

Vegetation and logs create roughness in the channel, slow damaging floodwaters and protect stream bed and banks, with in-stream woody debris and vegetation also providing habitat for native fish and other fauna.

The log structures being installed at Dartbrook are a mixture of deflector jams, which stabilise the stream at strategic points, and ‘hotels’ or habitat snags for native in-stream fish like Australian Bass and Mullet.

“The CMA has been working in partnership with Anglo Coal for a number of years on a large-scale river rehabilitation project on mine buffer land at the Dartbrook underground mine,” Mr Thompson said.

“It’s been an extremely successful partnership that has resulted in extensive revegetation along the banks of the Hunter River and in particular, the regeneration of an endangered population of River Red Gums, which is a fantastic outcome for the Hunter region.”

A total of 1200 logs will be installed throughout the various stages of the project, of which stage one is currently underway.

Hunter Valley mine operators, who are clearing trees as part of expanding mine activities, are being approached to supply logs for stages two and three of the project.